Solace of Adrenaline
by Captain Ben Brazee MD
Summary: Part 2 of Jack Crest's story


_**Solace of Adrenaline**_

By Ben Brazee

Jack Crest was acting foolish, as always. Wyatt never understood why he took this path, but could see the motives. All he could do was watch from a reflection in a lake a few miles away from where Jack actually was. Jack was in mourning from the death of his love, Beth and in exile from his city of San Francisco. The first times he visited him far away in the north Sierra Nevada Mountains he quoted Romeo, "There is no world without fine San Francisco bridges". Jack would say. Wyatt remembered Shakespeare; he almost lost the vision spell in reverie but focused and channeled more energy into the spell with ease. The vision of Jack stabilized in the pond's surface and he looked closer into it, his long flowing beard almost breaking the smooth surface. Jack was hunting; a mountain lion was his quarry. Wyatt would not interrupt him, he knew jack only hunted other predators when he needed their fangs for arrow tips, and he fought them on their terms. He said he never used magic in his hunts, just the ways the beast within him taught him.

The two were in a grassy plain of dead, golden grass. Soon it would be stained with blood from the hunter's dance. Jack stood ready with his spear and claws at hand, only thirty downwind yards of the cougar, a male. All of a sudden Jack began to move silently forward, slowly to get in range of a sprint for the kill. Six yards were covered before the beast turned its keen eyes Jack's way. They locked eyes. It took them half a second to charge. Neither was in the same spot, but rather sprinting towards each other for the kill. Only one would come out alive, and as sure Wyatt was of Jack's hunting capability, he put the odds of survival at sixty forty in favor of Jack. Not what the sane stake their lives on.

The cougar jumped around Jack's spear, catching only a poke on the tail. Jack was not as fortunate; he got a set of four deep scratches from the cat. It was behind him and leapt again. Jack was ready for it; he whipped around and beat it with the base of his spear. The cat jumped at him forward, Jack stabbed it beneath the shoulder, but the spear went all the way through the massive cat's haunch. The screaming cat landed right on top of Jack, tackling him beneath it to a point where it was on top, claws ready. It ripped through his jerkin of animal hides, made painstakingly by hand. Three scratches, four, and then the head went down at Jack. Blood was pouring out of Jack's chest, tearing fangs moving in for the kill as Jack's hands were occupied with trying to pull it off of him. Wyatt stopped the spell; Jack knew the consequences of such an attack. The world would need a new savior now; he was afraid that he must step up to the challenge and probably die in the process. He flew out to where he was viewing Jack, following the screams of cougar and warlock.

He found Jack breathing heavily and leaning on his spear. Surprised, Wyatt descended. "That was quite the show Jack; I was ready to bury a good friend."

"You treat me like I'm a dancing bear. What date is it?" Jack always asked the date, he lost track of time while he was active at night and day. He wanted to know the date so he could calculate how many days he had left to save Beth. She was his dead lover, and if he could not bring her soul back to the mortal world, it would fully decay and she would be truly gone forever.

"October twenty second, two thousand and twelve." Wyatt tried to not tell him the dates anymore; Jack needed to get over Beth. Apparently he hadn't realized how much he loved her until the homunculi shot her down. He had tried to redeem himself to her by getting vengeance; of course he just called it vengeance but in truth it was his own redemption. Beth's death was caused by mistake in the spell Jack made to protect her, or so Jack said. It was likely her death was caused by her own foolishness, going into an easily lost combat situation. An easy to make mistake in such emotional turmoil and stress, but Jack had taken it as his fault.

"Two months left, exactly. You need a favor, I'm not going back, and they don't want me there. I tried to help them, I stopped an evil doer, and they reward me with hatred and exile! They get what they give; I will never help the city of San Francisco as long as I live! They can rot in hell!" Jack yelled at Wyatt, and Jack had an exceptionally loud voice, his roars could be heard up to two miles away on a clear day. His moods had been very swingy from thrilled with the hunt to sadness and grief at Beth's death, to rage at the city that exiled him for stopping a man in command of an army of homunculi.

"Jack, this is something that I only ask you of as a human. There has been an influx in the Daemon, demons are pouring into the world. San Francisco was attacked first, someone brought a powerful demon magician into the world, a black listed one. Now it's bringing more demons into the world as we speak, hidden in the dark recesses of the city, we have to stop it now! This threatens to end the world, many are already dead, all forces the country has are on the move to reinforce San Francisco. The end is in sight; our only hope lies in people like you, powerful magicians to stop the invasion."

"Why should I save a world that damns me?" Jack said calmly as he tore into the raw flesh of the cougar. Blood covered his hands, his fingers ended in long claws, one of the powers given to him by the beast within. A primordial predatory spirit lived within Jack; it made him into a strange, werewolf like combination of man and beast. The exception being that he had the aspects of many predatory creatures, he was not limited to the wolf. In other regards however, Jack was indeed much like a werewolf. He took the form of an ideal predatory beast at times, typically in combat. His bones and muscles shifted and grew to fit this form, it gave him great strength like a bear mixed with a tiger.

"I won't play the Beth card, but this is a chance at redemption. Show them that the beast can be used for more than senseless destruction. Now is your time in the arena, your time in the sun. Will you cower here in the wild, or will you play by the law of the jungle in the asphalt savannah?" Wyatt finished. "So, are you in?" Jack paused, over the corpse. The dry grass brushed against him, rustling his cloak as he thought. A long moment paused, blood dripped from Jack's chin. Wyatt held his breath.

"I'll go. I'll kill the demons. Beth would want it that way." Jack said. Wyatt nodded and they took off by magic flight momentarily. They flew quickly, passing cars far beneath them. Wyatt smiled; perhaps this was indeed the return of a hero.

Jack Crest

I had kept my magic skills in shape by visiting my private land in another world; there I had trained myself once every few days or nights. I didn't talk to the natives, I hid from them. I had been stockpiling magic from my hunts and the environment I had lived in for the last few years, so I figured fighting these demons would be easy. I was living, more roaming in the Sierra Nevada Mountains for the last year and a half. It had started with spring and summer, which probably saved my life, for the winter was harsh and snowed quite a bit. I remembered huddling on my hut under a pair of deerskins, nothing to eat. I hadn't made a kill in two weeks, I was starving to death. I grabbed a rabbit that hopped by the entrance to my hut, it kept me going and got me through the worst of it. Now it was near winter again, I could already feel the cold setting in, the days being shorter and the nights longer. It didn't matter much to me though, the night was one of my favorite times to hunt, or if I had enough food, just to stalk.

Anyways, so we flew back to San Francisco with all possible speed, trying to get there before night descended, for demons were stronger at night. "They made the first attack last night, it was horrible. Many innocent people died; thank god there weren't that many demons that night. But now there will be more, and of greater strength. The army is doing everything they can to fight them, but guns aren't nearly as good as spells against them. Of course the Hand of God is powerful against the demons, their knights felling many and rarely receiving a scratch. The problem is in the numbers of the knights, so few swords are there to give that their numbers are limited. We still aren't sure of how the back listed demon got into the world, I suspect a foolish conjuror. One that may have doomed the world." Wyatt explained. I nodded as the city came into my hawk like vision. It was still probably thirteen miles away, but we would make it by nighttime.

"I see. How is everyone by the way?" I asked. I was inquiring on the health of everyone who had fought with me at the Embassy to the Supernatural against the vampires. There was always Beth, she was gone.

"Jimmy is at the top of his field as a SWAT leader, Michael is still preaching at Grace Cathedral, I'm still trying to figure out what to do next. These two thousand years are beginning to take their toll in boredom." Wyatt responded. I noted that the venerable wizard was taking the form of a "young" man, appearing thirty something, a change from earlier with the elder magician look. He had black hair that was down to his ears, striking blue eyes and skin that was exceptionally tan. "You look well, at least in your clothing." Wyatt said. I had repaired my healing sharkmail, kept my alchemic cloak that moved like cloth but protected like metal and still bore my powerful staff.

"With the exception of Beth, I'm actually ok. I've got a lot of magic to throw around as well." I responded. "I take it we will have to meet with the mayor about this?"

"Indeed Jack, try to restrain yourself in his presence. He values you, but is afraid of you."

"Values me at thirteen fifty with tax." I said. I hate the shit out of that coward. He's so corrupt, and morally incompetent. We descended from a lofty three miles up into the city heart, right towards the capital building. Helicopters were everywhere, troops in green uniforms jogged about with guns on their shoulders, it looked like West Point naval academy had been built around a San Francisco city block. It felt good to be home, which was a welcome feeling. Little felt good without Beth. We landed on the entrance lawn of city hall, a beautiful, historic area with a typical big statue in the middle of it. There was a wrought iron picket fence topped with what looked like alchemic gold surrounding the main building which was a white house knockoff with three gold leafed doors at the center entrance. By White House knockoff I mean it has a central dome with two wings of pure white, hypocritical to those inside it. We entered through the doors, I think a bit of gold flecked off of it onto me. The building had been undamaged in last night's attack, but I sure hoped I would get to burn it up sometime soon. My thoughts were slowly returning to a wizardly level as I got back into civilization

"Jack Crest, I require you to leave the city immediately or I will have to shoot you." A guard with a big pistol said to me.

"They know my name; I'll have to put that down on the customer service card." I responded as I walked under the dome towards a door in the back that led to a hallway, from there to the mayor's private office. I had once been quite the smartass, I try to return to such comedy, it is simply too difficult sometimes. I feel like I can't live happily after killing Beth.

"Relax, I'm escorting him." Wyatt said to the guard as he flashed some sort of pass. Whether it was real or fabricated I don't know, but it got us past the secretary's desk in a hurry, the aging woman buzzing the door to the hallway open with all her speed. We walked quietly down the hallway; the only sound was that of our staves thumping the floor and my tough foot skin scraping the carpet. My shoes had worn out in the second month in the wild; I had never bothered to replace them for my skin proved to be tough enough to be unbothered by the ground. We got to the end of the hallway where there was a small security kiosk, a new addition. A forty something Asian man buzzed us in when Wyatt flashed his pass again, the door to the mayor's office opened.

"Jesus fucking Christ, who let him in!" The mayor, an Edward S. Reman, screamed like a terrified little girl. "You can't be serious Wyatt!"He continued.

"I'm dead serious. This man has a chance against the demons; this man is our only hope tonight. He's willing to die fighting, and he's very good at that. If you want your town, you need this man."

"But he'll kill me, he causes such widespread destruction! And as for you Mr. Crest, you were told never to come back on penalty of death." The man reached for an intercom button on his desk. "I'll give you three seconds to start running."

"Not gonna happen bitch. I'm here to stay and unless you want another massacre tonight, I'll be uncontested here. I'm going to investigate who started this, who summoned that black listed demon, who helped him or her summon it and what the fuck they were thinking. Do you have any information on where and when they will strike tonight?" I asked that tiny motherfucker. He wasn't that short, he was just a morally little man.

"I'd rather burn my city down than let you free here." Then Edward pressed the intercom button. "Eugene, send in the special security team, we have a situation."

"The team is on their way Mr. mayor." Came through a little speaker on his desk, squeaky with static. The door opened again and the Asian guy stepped through, bearing a pistol at the back of my neck. I turned my head onto my shoulder to see him and he lowered his weapon. "Mr. Crest, you're alive!"Did this guy not recognize me when I entered?

"For a while." I responded to him as I turned back to the mayor. It appeared the people liked me again. That made me feel somewhat used, I considered using my force choke spell on this guy to fight off the feeling. Six guys with machine guns, similar or the same ones to the one the first guard used came bursting into the room, two running and jumping over to the mayor's desk, where they pushed it over and slammed him to the ground. A preemptive SWAT team, that might be bad.

"Sir get on the ground now and put your staff away!" One of them yelled at me. This guy I would force choke, no question.

"I find your lack of faith disturbing" I said to him as I put up my hand, magic flowing through my veins. My right hand was in a gesture imitating the grasping of a neck, the quote being the vocal trigger for the spell. The man began to float a few inches off the ground, than a foot, than three feet as he gasped for air as my force magic stopped his air flow.

"Jack, that's enough. Their just doing they're job." Wyatt said to me. I suddenly released my grip on the man as the other guards leveled their machine guns on me. The man fell to the ground and lightly touched his unharmed neck, breathing deeply. I looked towards Wyatt, than the terrified mayor. "Please excuse my accomplice; he's rather irritable right now."

"Of course sir, it's an honor to be in the presence of Mr. Crest." The recently choked man said. That was a little odd, most people don't like being choked. "Mr. Mayor, you want us to evict this man?" The man seemed now incredulous and perhaps a little bit scared. I felt the energy he was emitting change from terrified to somewhat happy to confused and a little scared within the minute.

"No, I want you to shoot him! This man is a criminal that has resisted his sentence, now kill him!"

"Don't do it men, there is a lot of nice stuff in the room I might have to stain." I said to the troops as they nervously looked at each other and the mayor. I brought my staff to a combat stance and let my fingers morph seamlessly into ripping claws. I felt my blood get hotter, the energy I commanded flow ready for spells that could burn, push and rip, not all with pure magic. _I must admit there are challenges the others give us here in the manmade jungle that I rather enjoy. Let's start with the pack leader there, his lack of respect for our superiority as a hunter annoys me. _The beast within me spoke. When Beth was alive I resisted him and tried to ignore him, thinking I was different from him. Now I realize that we are the same, that he is simply a facet of my life. A powerful, vicious facet that enjoyed its meat raw, but a part of me I could not ignore. Now that I embraced it I was stronger, faster and tougher, a more bestial man. On the downside, I didn't fit in as well, and I had to deal with an off the tracks sex drive and strange changes to eating and sleeping patterns.

"Mr. Mayor, Jack is our only hope. Kill him and you kill us all. By all I mean everyone, San Francisco, America, humanity, all over a personal struggle between you two. I will not let you do that, call of the guards or die like the rest of the world will!" Wyatt was yelling now. His yells weren't like mine; mine were a roar that could be heard miles away, his were something better. His raising of his voice put tension in the air; it made him the center of the world, a magician of drama and command. When Wyatt yelled, everyone heard him. A long pause filled the air, the smell of ozone just showed up in my sensitive nostrils. Wyatt sure had my sense of drama, maybe that's why we got along so well.

Reman spoke after a long pause of thought. "Very well. Jack, report to the commander of the soldiers defending us and the wizard companies under General O'Doram's command. I will not tolerate your vigilante ways here Jack, you'll find her in the Russian Hill American Army Facilities, you can't miss it. Now get out of my sight." The frustrated Mr. Reman said as he sat back down at his desk and hid in his hands. The guards accompanied us out the hardwood door.

"Way to get dramatic back there." I said as the Asian security sentry returned to his kiosk. "Jack is the only hope. Kill him and you kill us all. And of course: call off the guards or die like the rest of the world will!" I joked to Wyatt.

"I've noticed your attempts at humor are getting strained. You need to get over Beth man; it's been too long for you to hold on to her like she is still in your arms." Wyatt said solemnly to me.

"You are the vampire of fun." I said to him. "I'm just hoping for a good fight tonight, it's been a long time since I got that saving the world adrenaline flow." I told him as I casually summoned my motorbike once we left the building. "Hell's Horse" triggered the spell and the alchemic monstrosity rose in a ring of sulfur reminiscent fire. I straddled the seat of it as Wyatt summoned some sort of spiritual horse. We rode to Russian Hill via Van Ness, the classic cookie cutter houses zoomed past us as we rode over broken roads and piles of ash. The people around us looked towards the thundering of my bike and the pounding of the ethereal hooves of Wyatt's horse and cheered, we were heroes to them. For now.

We got up to the top of the hill, where we could see the damage to the city. Smoke rose slightly from some areas, mostly the Western Addition was damaged, but not as bad as it could be. Probably to the small amounts of demons on the loose were still keeping fires burning bright. I came to wondering where they were now; they would be weak in the quickly fading sunlight and would seek to take shelter underground. Probably hiding out in some poor elderly couple's basement where they could conjure more of their spawn. At the top of the hill we found a clear area on Vallejo Street; where a rather well alchemized set of barriers was up and a massive dome shield was in place, doubtlessly part of the M.E.R.L.I.N.'s attempts to get friendly with the human government. I looked around; maybe I would see Jimmy in this mess of alchemic concrete and evacuated buildings. The buildings were divested of civilians and filled makeshift hospitals, screams of agony coming from within a few of the old brick structures. On the top of all of them was a set of helicopter pads, even one of the streets had been cleared of anything that could hinder a plane landing on them. A plane like a F16 or Nighthawk. Men and women in uniforms trooped about, some carrying wounded civilians, others trying to reunite lost children with their parents, others still talking to wizards. The wizards on the other hand had actually useful work to do, like clearing the streets, repairing buildings with alchemy, constructing secure portals for more traffic to enter the city and making force domes with magic I was never interested in.

"Jack Crest and Wyatt the Chronicler, good to see you made it. This party's about to get crazy, night falls soon. We need you boys in the trucks for quick dispatch, once we get a report of where the demons are we'll ship out and hit em hard and fast." A female commander said to me as she approached, ordering people about her with arm gestures and code terms. She spoke to us as she walked towards us, then went right past as she picked up a large metal crate with the help of a soldier in Kevlar. The commander wore thick Kevlar over her camouflage uniform; on top of the Kevlar was a massive patch of medals that seemed to be enough to protect her from a few shots. The two of them carried the crate over to a cement barricade and opened it up next to four other opened crates. The steel box was stacked full of guns, big machine gun type weapons. Her speaking was nothing like I expected it to be, her voice was weak and low. This whole thing seemed so unlike how I pictured it, so chaotic in comparison to what I thought would be a bastion of order.

"_Insolent wench! I am Jack Crest the Vampire Slayer, hero and hunter! I have fought against vampires and magicians; I will not take command from a temporary leader of the pack!" _The beast roared out through me. I had to agree with it, she could have at least given us the courtesy of looking at us. In a split second I realized the repercussions, they failed to bother me.

"This insolent wench is your superior for now Crest, now shut you fucking mouth and get in a truck." The commander told me. I relented with a hateful glance to her, but I smiled as I turned and climbed into the steel reinforced truck. _The she hunter is a capable leader_ the beast and I agreed thoroughly on that. I heard a radio spasm for a few moments just on the other side of this tin can, maybe it was the remnants of my last alchemy spell screwing it up, maybe it was actually working.

"Reported hostile magical activity on the route one o five in hunter's point, we need back up ASAP. There are more of these than I thought possible…" the radio buzzed before it fell silent.

"Attention soldiers, it's time to ship out, drivers, south on the one o five in hunter's point, you'll know when to stop!" General O'Doram shouted to the troops. With such well drilled movements to match choreography they piled into the reinforced tin cans on wheels. I jumped for the second truck in line to get out of here, it was the trucks moved out quickly, jolting and bouncing on freshly made potholes as they swerved around the barricades of alchemic cement. Wizards flew all around us, conjurors, alchemists and sentinels all over the convoy as we moved out to save the world. The sentinels were nothing to me, even as the warriors of the M.E.R.L.I.N. There were four trucks moving with all possible speed through the early night. I pulled my energy around me, taking in the serious mood of the silent, Kevlar padded elite troopers that filled the truck. I could fight today; I would let out as much energy as I could to assure the death of the demons. Hopefully we could take out enough to cripple the invasion, but it all depended upon the variety of invaders. Some likely varieties came to mind.

There could be nightwalkers, long and tall demons with claws that stretched to cut through anything, comprised entirely of shadow magic. If they were the pawns of the invasion, only wizards would be able to drain them of power and kill them. There might be Banshee demons that screamed in a way that drained energy from their foes. Enough of them could literally waste a man away. There would likely be a few demons of the Fel family. Fel genres of demons are exceptional incarnations of a sin, such as a seductress succubus that takes control of their target's mind. For sure there would be a many Fel soldiers, armor clad demons that fought with blades of fire and bone. Perhaps they would send forth Ex-lich magicians who sold their souls to the demons, now more powerful and always on the frenzying effects of shadow magic. I would likely have to kill them. There would surely be an unspeakably large horde of imps and fel imps, each one an incarnation of deception or a minor backstab. _The variety of this pack hunt will be interesting surely. We are close to them; do you not smell the sulphur and feel the seeping of the fel energy into the landscape?_ I responded affirmatively to the beast with me. It would require all the ferocity I had to command to keep my position in here. I was valued as a tool, a weapon that could be used against the enemy. A radio began to buzz at the end of the truck.

"First truck unload and move into attack positions. Second truck unload and move into support positions. Fourth truck move for the portal, secure the area at all cost." I was out of that truck like a hungry predator, my glowing staff swirling with semi corporeal stars and glowing silver with energy. The troops followed me into the abandoned highway. Few cars sat on the highway, buildings surrounded by trees that flanked the highway. The troops ran forward to where the first truck's company was, hiding behind newly made cement barriers. Sentinels swarmed the sky, taking out the occasional imp as they descended for the circle. The fourth truck began to move towards the area where the portal was. It was newly raised and covered in summoning circles that I could identify. The circles allowed incoming creatures out, but nothing in. Demons were pouring out of it, most of them fel soldiers and fel imps with the occasional banshee. We were fucked; it seemed ten of them came out by the second. As the fourth truck came up in front of us as we rushed the three hundred yards to the barricades, disaster struck. Ex-Liches struck at us with massive bolts of fire, explosions flew everywhere. I felt the heat of the hellfire singe some of my hair and the impacts made me stumble as we sprinted towards our embattled allies. Then I noticed that they weren't aiming for the clump of soldiers sprinting to assist the first truck's company. They were aiming for the fourth truck just ahead of us. The truck burst into flames, I pulled up my shield just in time. Fire whipped around me, impacts rang hollow on me as my shield stopped charred bone and shrapnel from killing me. The truck bounced around, I slipped under it as it began to roll, and putting all the energy I could into my shield spell. The troops behind me were not as lucky; I watched a few as I turned my head backwards. I wished I hadn't, three were buried under the burning truck, one was hit in the knees with a door and fell onto his face. It was then that the Ex-liches bombarded the survivors with a sudden corruption of the heat into hellfire. The fire latched onto their energy producing fear and burned. In one swift moment, forty men died.

I would need to study my demonology to survive the invasion, but for now I was content with taking cover behind a cement wall with seven troopers. I put up my magic shield so our silent company would be protected by the onslaught. I turned and looked at the cement. Glyphs of protection and spells of shielding were carved into it; I put out a small spell I had made in the wild. I motioned my quivering, open palm over the cement. The spell identified other magic on the cement, revealing trace amounts of fear based energy, an enhancement on the defensive qualities of the cement and an anti magic ward. It would have taken me a full minute to alchemize this; it probably took the M.E.R.L.I.N. alchemists a moment. I let my shield spell fall as the troopers turned and put their guns to the cement block. A rattling of modern machine gun met screams of agony and the shrill cry of an occasional banshee. Provided we weren't met with a bombardment of magic and force, the shield would hold up and the banshee cries would be harmless. Still did the soldiers shake in their thick boots.

I turned around and looked at the scene. There was a semi circle of these cement walls protecting some hundred troopers as they fired on the raised portion of the highway. Demons fell left and right as the machine gun slugs broke through weak parts in the armor of the fel soldiers, ripped apart the leathery skin of the imps and broke through the weakest wards of battle liches. Thank Christ there were no nightwalkers yet. Someone would need to take out the portal or we would fall, and to do that we would need some alchemists. It all came together for me now.

The alchemists would be protected by the sentinels as they took down the summoning circle with the guidance of the conjurors. The troopers were there to aid the sentinels and allow the alchemists to get up close for easier transmutation. I supposed they could use a little help, but then I saw the reason that the last truck hadn't unloaded. It was guarding a company of knights, on horses, in armor. They were obviously knights of the Hand of God, a religious order dedicated to keeping magicians in check. Or exterminating them, that was the rough edge. But they were more than a religious institution; they really did get messages and power from god, in the form of holy swords and armor. They rode their armor plated horses right past us, some divine power keeping them and the truck from being hit. The truck full of troops peeled up just near us and troops piled behind cement barricades. It was time for something inspiring, something brilliant, like a charge on the portal. Maybe not brilliant, but it would be needed. I doubted the alchemists would be able to focus and perform spells effectively with those big pieces of heaven's metal swinging around them; they would need some more cover. Cover that could be provided by troops with machine guns. Time to do some inspiring stuff.

"Alright boys, time to drop your balls and do something. Something for humanity, something that will be remembered for the new century, time to be somebody." I paused. I was considering making this a curse filled drill sergeant/grizzled veteran speech, but instead went the Nelson Mandela way. "The demon forces have complete control of that portal and with that, they have control of the world. The only hope humanity has in us, the men on the front lines that can and will stop them. If you're here today, you're playing a part in what might be the end of humanity, or the beginning of a new golden era. It's time to end those demons threatening your wives, children and friends. It's time to protect the wizards that will do everything they can for our cause. This is when heroes are born, this is when the future is decided, and this is when we pay for our freedom, with our lives if we must. When you jump this wall, kill them all. Kill the imps, the banshees, the fel soldiers, and the liches. Each one of them we defeat it buys another minute for humankind. Climb on three." That was better than I thought it would be, especially for on the spot speaking. "One." I got chills, but my bestial adrenaline soothed them quickly. "Two." The leadership would hate me for this. "Three." I hopped the wall and blasted fire from the sun on the end of my staff. "Pyromenthil!" I roared as a company of imps sizzled before my fiery advance. The troops hopped moments after me, machine guns blazing, sprinting as fast as they could. I brought some new magic into play, magic I had developed in the wild. I let my abundant magic energy flow to my hands, I muttered but a word "Zeus" and the energy turned into wild lightning. I let it flow out through my newly transformed claws, which began to crackle. A team of Fel soldiers closed in on a band of four troopers, whose weapons were proving ineffective towards them. I made punching motions, uppercuts, left hooks, right drives as the lightning crackled between my claws. It shot out as I feigned the hits, each one delivering a burst of lightning many times stronger than my actual knuckles could deal, even with my strong muscles and adrenaline. I directed the punches to two of the Fel soldiers, ending them in a crackling flurry of searing heat and the smell of ozone. I did everything I could to keep the flow of lightning through my hands as imps began to cluster around me. It burned to keep the energy flowing into such an unstable element, but I kept swinging my blows as the imps began to jump towards me, fire leaking from their mouths. I delivered an uppercut and sent six flying away in a flash of blue-white heat. The spell ended when I lost my focus a second later when four small impacts hit my back. They were imps, and they were clawing through my chainmail. I heard the ringing of alchemic steel hitting cement as they ripped through my sharkmail armor to get to my tough hide beneath. I didn't give them that courtesy.

With a burst of muscle power I threw myself up in one hell of a pushup and twirled about, my cape flinging the imps off. They landed on the cement where I began to slaughter them. I got on all fours as I felt my muscle and bone structure twist and warp within me to get into a structure similar to that of a werewolf or tiger. I pounced onto the four of them, tearing one with my large fangs that grew in place of my regular teeth when my adrenaline began to flow. I tore another one up with my claws in a bear like swipe. The third and fourth readied their fire strike abilities, but I body slammed one as I released the first imp from my jaw, slamming it right into the fourth. There was space around me, I saw a warden holding his shield against a Fel soldier. The soldier's blows made visible impacts on the shield; the warden was grimacing as he focused his energy into the shield. His energy was wavering, he would fall soon.

"Alchemisis!" I grunted through my guttural throat. The armor of the fel soldier melted away as I alchemized it to water and pounced at a two foot gash in his armor made by the spell. I tore at it with my claws, trying to rip the armor off. I felt the energy of the demon drain in its black blood, still warm from the fires of whatever hell it lived in. I tore at the chest of the demon, knocking it to the cement of the highway, blood spurting past me as I tore through the armor and flesh. I let the energy it needed to stay here pour out past me; I brought my fangs in past my claws for the finishing bite as it futilely tried to push my mass off it. I tore its neck out; blood spurted everywhere, blocking my vision. Hot, black blood that smelled like tar and sulfur. Swift, terrified blood that tasted like confusion.

Dead, torn flesh filled my mouth as I stood over my kill. _This pack war is one of great ferocity. Though ours may be subdued, we shall die on an epic hunt. _I felt great, the blood poured through my mouth as I leapt at a banshee skeleton, tearing it's bones, crushing it's skull before it could scream. This was truly a way to live and die, on the battlefield, with claws and fangs. I stood over my fresh kill and shifted out of beast form. I still bore my staff in hand, soldiers were advancing around me. Imps crawled all over a fallen soldier; I blasted them away with fire. Fel soldiers contested a bold group of troopers, I choked the three of them at the same time. I was unstoppable, I roared in a primal expression of my dominance of the battlefield. My voice must have carried for miles, guttural sound passed over my blood stained tongue. I felt pain stopping my voice. It was a screeching pain, a shock. I looked down from the heavens and saw the aggressor. A nightwalker stood on my level, it's claws deep in my chest, it's second black hand raised high above it's head. The creature was pure black, like a trick to the eye it had no texture. It seemed to just be a jet black humanoid shape, tall and elongated like a shadow incarnate. And it's hand was buried in my chest. I felt myself nodding off into shock, if I blacked out, I was a dead man. Pain was an afterthought to my exit of this world.

"I guess war can't be too easy." I muttered. I had a small plan, somewhat risky but it would save my life. I let the beast take control; it was more tolerant to dark energies than my mortal mind. _We are quite the pair now, I'll drain it of its strength and expel it into the conjuring demons on the platform. _Let it be beast. The nightwalker cringed as it began to bring it's second set of claws down, into my neck. The dark energy filled my mind and body; it was hard to bear the burden. I felt like I needed to ruin some lives, burn homes, destroy families, rape, murder and desecrate the earth and its people. Strangely enough, that gave me a revalation.

That was the purpose of this invasion, to do those horrible things to this world. Our world, my world. And all of a sudden everyone was my family. I hadn't let so much evil into me since the blood rebellion in the nineties. The nightwalker let out some type of energy pulse that showed it's distress as I absorbed all the dark energy it was made of. All of a sudden it began to flow out of me after what seemed like an eternity of living in that hungry, destructive state. I watched as a spectator through my own eyes as the energy lashed out at the summoning demons within the circle. It broke through all the wards on it and killed the demons inside. It literally scared them to death; I watched a black cloud similar in appearance to a nightwalker, as if it had just spread out in a bubble within the circle. The demons inside became wide eyed and stopped summoning for a moment. One of them scrambled against the spell, but it slowed his escape. Moments later three ex lich demons lay dead in the circle and the summoning was stopped. I felt a weight leave my chest as the dark magic left my control, but at the same time I felt a little shell shocked. All of a sudden I felt like my regular, pure magic was useless. I felt alone and powerless against the demons that remained, even though I remained a powerful wizard and was surrounded by brave U.S. soldiers. I took a step back, it turned into a stagger. I was still bleeding and had a gash in my chest almost large enough to put my fingers in. I fell to the ground, stopping myself with my hand, the world hurt. I felt like I might die here, the demons had already proved to be tricky and capable of advanced strategy. The burning bodies behind me were a testament to that, if the ex liches saw me I was a dead man. The world began to spin about, I slipped all the way to the ground, it felt like my hand got kicked out from beneath me as I tried to brace my fall. I turned my head, the agony increased from my rib cage, it seemed like I was being pulled apart.

To my left was a fel imp, not a threat normally, but this one was standing in front of my face with a fireball ready to burn it off. I needed someone else to do something now, I was in too much pain. My head listed to the side, the imp would drag me to hell in just a moment. My eyes closed as I braced for the pain. I wasn't squeezing them shut, I just accepted the fact that I would die now.

A blinding white light flashed before my eyes. I felt them open as I touched my neck; I felt my heart pulse feebly underneath my skin. The pain had stopped suddenly. I felt the beast take a few actions; I was now on my feet, claws out, fangs ready to tear some flesh. The imp wasn't there at all, I still felt somewhat dizzy though. But this was a good kind of dizzy; this was the dizzy I get when I'm near Michael or a church. I looked around; there was a holy knight right by me, an imp impaled on the end of his lance. His horse bucked around and charged for the summoning circle, where the last of tonight's demons were backed up against. He had saved my life like it was no big deal, just killed that which would have killed me. Not to mention that, he had used the strength of the divine to heal me. Then he just rode off, to perform his duty for humankind. I would have taken a moment to thank him, but a fusillade of explosions went off around me, I barely had time to shield myself from the worst of them. I felt my shark mail produce a light healing spell, finishing any wound left open after the knight's favor. The heat and light blinded me; I produced tears from the warmth.

I charged back to the fray legs and arms pounding in synch with my heart, sprinting back towards the battle on all fours. I can really sprint on all fours thanks to changes in bone structure when I merge my body into predator incarnate, it's useful for getting within range to clamp my jaws on the neck of a deer. In this case I was pouncing on a solidified Nightwalker as it stabbed at a soldier, someone had incarnated it's pure energy into something tangible so it could be shot. A smart spell, but it took people like these soldiers to destroy it still. Or two hundred pounds of bear/tiger/shark/falcon/wizard tearing it's back apart. I brought my massive claw tipped paws into its back, pushing them into its strange, soft flesh. I tore it's neck out with my fangs, It didn't bleed, disappointing. There were large gashes in the corpse of the demon, large as the gashes in the corpse of the soldier beneath it. I continued my charge with fluid motion across the shrinking battleground. Demons fell left and right under machine gun fire. I passed the line of soldiers to pounce on a banshee. The frail demon went down fast. I watched as the wizards brought down the barricades after a few long minutes of channeling, casting and undoing the magic put on by the demons. Expert conjurors sealed the portal left open by the demons in thirty seconds flat. The last of the demons on the battlefield were put down, the battle was over.

I was tired but unscathed thanks to the knight and my sharkmail, but others were far less fortunate. People were bleeding all over; some were screaming in agony, others were frighteningly silent. The gore and carnage didn't bother me as much as it should have, probably due to me lacerating my meals to get a snack for the last year. But this was still enough to make me sick, for the wounds of the living were nothing compared to the amount of the dead in this fight. It had taken us less than twelve minutes to shut down the rift, but it looked like some hundred and fifteen men had died. Medics had stormed the field with efficiency we wished we could have had, the shocking paddle things and anesthetics were brought to bear on the wounded and dying. Looking at some dead near me, I noticed many were wizards, sentinels who died in line of duty. I was scared, the numbers of my kind are low, thanks to an ambitious leadership team in the wardens that had killed off most of the wizards and narrowed our gene pool to only those most capable. I found a felled sentinel, a grey haired warrior-wizard in alchemic steel/leather robes. She was breathing lightly, she coughed up blood once. The medics had bigger fish to fry than her.

"Walk it off." I said to her as I channeled energy through my hands and examined her wounds. The one liner was the vocal component to my low grade healing spell; it was a form of flesh transmutation I learned from my last opponent, a rogue alchemist. The spell filled the wounds I selected with energy and slowly transformed it into tissue identical to that surrounding it. It wasn't an equal transmutation, so that made things a little easier, but it did increase the time it took to cast and the energy in it. I focused deeply and let the energy flow out of my outstretched hands, motioning in a gesture of a fist opening and closing. I saw her smile a little, than I looked at what I would have to do. One of her arms was twisted around in a horrible, broken manner; there were long scratches from her neck to her stomach, each quite deep. I laid down my healing spell on the scratch closest to her left jugular, letting the energy fill the wound than transform into flesh. I took on the next wound; I had noticed how my energy level had depleted through the fight. Entering it I was at the top of my game, energy coursed through me from the thrill of hunts and the strength and experience I had gained living in the wild. Now I felt like how I felt when I was just beginning my career as a vigilante, that fateful night at the Salted Doubloon. It was a significantly lower amount than when I had entered the fight, but I was still charged and capable.

"You don't have to fix me up buddy; I've got no one else." The warden said.

"Me too." I said to the Sentinel. She wasn't the best to look at, messy black hair spilled all over, scars running down her neck, eyes glowing with magic. Her body wasn't nice looking, rather blockish shaped. It didn't matter though, my kind needed to survive or that which goes bump in the night will kill humanity.

"I owe you one." The Sentinel said as I fixed her broken arm. Bones are a bit more complex than tissue, and this one had splinters all over the tissue. It took me a full minute to fix her arm, but it was good as new when it was done.

"You owe me a lot more than that. now go report to someone." I said as I flew off into the night. The area of the battleground was small, but it was packed. I had nowhere to go, nowhere but the sky, a moment of solace.

I had loved the sky since I was young and first learned to fly. The sky was a place where anything could be done, compared to the land where one could only move on a two dimensional plane. The sky allows me to move in absolutely any direction at any pace. It was like my drug, my home and my training ground all rolled into one endless blue package. I can remember any number of important events of life that I had done here in the endless blue and unwavering night. My first kiss was with another wizard far into the cloudbank, the first time I ever killed something was with a gun from thirty feet above a snow bank in Alaska, The first time I made a portal I was flying a foot above the ground, the stresses of high school made me spend at least an hour a day flying around in the form of a bird.

I made my way towards the heart of the city, eventually I just returned to the spot where the military camp had been set up. I landed before I noticed how much I hated reporters, who were flocking supreme general commander O' something or other, cameras all over. The general was talking from behind her crossed arms, deep brown eyes a well one could get lost and die in. Once I landed, it seemed like I siphoned the attention from her to myself. I considered taking off or teleporting out to anywhere at least fifty plus yards from here. "_You've got a reputation to uphold Jack_." Wyatt whispered into my brain through his invasive long range communication spell. I began to wonder if I should just give up alchemy to buy a cell phone so he could call me. At this point I was backed up against a wall by a half circle of eager reporters, an odd amount of them Asian.

"Mr. Crest, how have you been dealing with the loss of Beth?"

"Mr. Crest, have you experimented with drugs since the loss of your girlfriend?"

"Mr. Crest where did you go when you left San Francisco?"

I opened my mouth to speak against the fusillade of far too personal questions, but one struck too close to home.

"Mr. Crest is it true you killed Beth Mclane?" Fuck no. The question was posed by an exceptionally tall blond reporter. That question was too far, I loved Beth. I extended my claws.

"Your lack of faith disturbs me" I said under my breath. In one quick motion I began to choke the man with magic, his feet dangling just inches off the ground as I closed my magic grip around his neck. "I don't see how you figure that you little prick, but I wouldn't harm Beth if it meant my life. Perhaps you don't quite know love, but shut your insolent mouth before I make those your last words." I said calmly to the suffocating man. He was terrified; I considered slashing off his dick. I dropped my choke hold on him and gave him a swift punch on the shoulder, tearing through an expensive blazer with my razor sharp claws.

"If anyone else has any questions about Beth, I'll be here all night." The mob of reporters was silent for just a few moments. Many of the camera men fiddled with their cameras, attaching what looked like extra batteries or something to them, likely to cope with my alchemic aura.

"Why did you come back?" One modest reporter asked. She had no reason to be modest; she was beautiful, had a microphone belonging to a powerful company and was wearing enough jewelry to feed a small African nation for years to come. She also asked a decent question. Hell, she asked an applicable question. I thought over it for a moment. Then I remembered I was probably being seen on televisions all over the world in many languages.

"I got bored." Oh shit. A long, awkward pause filled the air. "Well, I was living in the wilderness of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, not far from Tahoe. I didn't have much with me, just my staff, my knife, my magic. I hunted for food; I used the skin and bone to make what I needed. I lived in a simple hut I couldn't stretch my arms in; I spent the cold winter huddled under a pair of deer skins by a small fire. I was happy there, no one but my good friend Wyatt the Chronicler bothered me." My tone had turned lame and quiet. "Wyatt told me just earlier today of what happened yesterday, he told me of the threat we faced." I paused. "I did not want to do this. I would have been fine letting humanity fall and eventually be run down by the demons myself. But it was Beth who compelled me to fight. It was for the world she grew up in, for the race she lived with. I would die at any time to bring her back; I would do the same thing for her memory. She meant the world to me, and now she is gone. All life is now is waiting and preparing for a good hunt or a tough fight." Everyone was silent. Tears glistened on a few faces. I needed to lose the drama.

"What if the demons have her? It is known for them to take souls of dead wizards to their own armies." A wizard journalist said.

"Than I would kill them all. There would not be a demon remaining when I am through with this. If they have her, I will free her. They think they know what hell is, they call it their home. It's my house now." I finished. That was too dramatic.

"Why di…" A reporter questioned me as I began to walk away. This interview was over. The crowd followed me until I flew into the night. I felt it good to end on a dramatic note, and I was losing faith humanity quickly. I had just participated in a battle against a horde that might end the world as we knew it, but the questions were still on my little scandal. They had no respect for her, no respect for the woman who died by my fault, the love that was gone forever. The beauty that I would do anything for. I flew high into the clear autumn night. The moon was waning; it was merely a crescent now. I looked down at the city in panic, buildings burned in places from minor attacks; people were scrambling to leave even at this late hour. I flew out to Treasure Island and landed on the roof of my old flat. I alchemized the roof door open and descended the stairs to a back entrance to it. I Alchemized the back door open and walked into my old flat. I hoped no one else had moved into it, I needed to reference my demonology books and prepare some potions. I had run out of energy potions in the wilderness, flat out. I had spent years accumulating a full chest of potions, now I had none. I looked around, entering through a side room off my old study. It looked the same as I had left it. The same redwood desk sat facing the same window, on the same horrible shag carpet. The carpet ended a few feet from the window in a square, inside of which there was a summoning circle. Within a large closet was another circle, this one larger and usable for advanced rituals. The study was shelved with large racks of regents for spells, everything from bone dust to a large piece of Baltic amber.

I walked into the bedroom, a place where Beth and I first spent intimate time together. It felt like I had walked into a deep pool of water and now my movements were slowed, weighted down. The place seemed so drear and foreign without Beth, just knowing she was dead made me dislike it. I closed my eyes and walked away in disgust of this room, I didn't care where I would sleep, provided it wasn't here. I looked into my empty fridge and desolate cupboards, I was hungry. I looked at the poorly realchemized area of my counter where I had taken a sword out of in the heat of combat. I remember that moment of a fight, vampire victims came at Beth, Jimmy and me as we rested in my home. Beth had been attacked, I had slain the vampires. I had defended her successfully for once, which made me feel proud. I still let her die later though. I had no one to blame but myself for her death. As did she, it was my failed shield spell that let her die. Vengeance didn't change anything, she still hated me. It didn't redeem me in her eyes. I realized I was crying salty tears.

I looked around at my living space, it had a few worn old couches I had gotten used from when I just bummed around and sold alchemized gold to pawn shops. I realized my dvd scroll collection was gone, I kept crying. I returned to my study, opened my demonology book circa nineteen twenty five and wept over its pages. _We have prey to study jack. _

"Indeed we do beast, but now I can't"

_It is the way of the females and the weak to allow emotions to rule themselves_

"I've found that it is not the weak that become emotional, but rather the emotions that bring me to weakness. For god sake, I killed her. I fucking killed the best woman I've ever seen. The greatest of them all. She was beautiful like the flowers of the plains and wise like one who has seen too much. Fucking shit, I killed her. I fucking killed a powerful wizard and a beautiful woman over vigilante justice. Fuck me. Fuck me."

_It was not your fault she died; there was a small hole in the shield_

"There is a difference in when there is a small hole in the shield that keeps rain off you and the shield that keeps the greatest woman on earth alive. There's a fucking difference from when you're shielding yourself and when your shielding one superior to you. You fucking make it work on the superior."

_There is none superior to us Jack; we are the greatest hunter this world has to offer._

"I can't blame you for not understanding that there is more to life than hunting and slaughter, but for fuck's sake man, shut the fuck up. This is something you don't understand, this is something you don't stalk, you don't track it, and you don't prepare a trap for this. This is fucking love, love I did not return. Fuck me."

_If there is something greater than hunting, greater than the thrill of the fatal blow, greater than the rush of hot blood as prey screams in it's death throes, if there is anything greater than standing on the still hot carcass of our slain opponents and howling to the world that we are the greatest hunter in the world, I have yet to view it._

"Than you have yet to open your fucking night vision cat eyes, killing, dying, slaying is the end of life. Before it is all the moments people live through. There is love, hate, happiness, sorrow. All fighting is is an end to those, a summation of those emotions and memories at the end of the prey's life. You only see the end beast, I see the whole goddamn clusterfuck."

_Very well then, it appears that this cobblestone jungle is home to your less than ferocious side. Stalk that prey with care Jack, for these are dangerous times. _

"Shut up you damned cat." I said. I felt somewhat more light hearted now, the beast had a way of reinvigorating me to kick ass. Kick ass for Beth, for others who still had something to live for. I flipped through the tear stained pages of the nigh century old tome, bound in leather not of this world. I opened up to the area on hostile demons, ones that were difficult to bind. The ones that people would use en masse for ending the world.

It should be known that the first and last time I summoned anything sentient was in my training, I got a succubus with my friends and it ended badly. Due to this, the only summoning I actually know is making Elementals, and that's mostly the study of Elementics. My actual knowledge of conjuration is quite limited.

I found the first entry, fel section. _Fel Bruttalus _was the entry on what I called fel soldiers. The entry read that they were advanced incarnations of the sin of killing and murdering. The Fel Bruttalus is known for its raging charges it makes on groups of targets. These charges scatter any resistance and are likely to destroy the central and/or primary target. The Bruttalus is speculated to be the foot soldier of the end of the world. Their armor is forged in hell, like the rest of their equipment. Those who take up the weapons fill the ranks of the fallen Bruttalae, for they become damned at the first drop of blood they shed with the weapons.

In dealing with the Bruttalae, ranged attacks are generally considered to be most effective. Use of magic bolts or darts can incapacitate them quite effectively if aimed at shoulder joints or the head. Use of arcane fire and explosion like magic has proven to be less than optimally effective, due to their hellforged armor. Cold magic has proven useful against them, particularly if used to shatter their weapons on impact. Earth magic and force magic are considered to be the most effective against them, impaling them with their own armor tends to be the best tactic. Likewise, alchemy can be used to do this by an advanced alchemist, but it is first required to blow the armor away from the demon, otherwise a flesh transmutation would be necessary. The armor changes with the years, it was last seen as a cuirass of dark energy, it has been speculated that it is shifting to a more fear based approach than function.

I could perform flesh transmutations thanks to a spell I picked up from a slain alchemist's twisted spellbook. It became mere consolation to the loss of my love and a year or so away from my city but consolation it was. I flipped over to the next page of the section on Fel demons, this one containing information on Fel Imps.

Fel Imps are basic imps, typically of the variety created by betrayal, except empowered with more Daemon energy. They typically are Promoted to this rank by a superior demon, in exchange for exceptional performance in battle or assassinating a minor angelic figure or outsider opponent. They are known for their fierce clawing attacks; combined with their leathery, silent wings and poisonous bite, to civilians they are a death sentence. When used in small clusters they are a serious threat.

The trick to destroying the imps is to strike them with force from nature. While a strong bond such as love or enduring friendship will drive off their lesser varieties, it takes forces from the natural world to defeat them. While any other variety of attack will prove successful, the nature of magic from the wild tends to prove most effective at destroying the imps. Typical methods of defeating their clusters can be to invoke wild growth on the area they occupy, entrapping and harming them. Using nearby vines and trees or such will defeat them effectively.

As always, those who are mourning their lost loved ones, are orphans, or have created much harsh feelings for themselves should be wary. Imps have been known to attack these varieties of people for no known reason other than spite.

That worried me. After tonight's battle, I realized how big of a target I was. My parents were dead, they died in the Blood Rebellion, not to mention Beth. People seemed to love me here, at least for now. Now the attack the imp made on me earlier made sense, I had two and a half of those reasons for attack. I'd have to watch my back and kick ass pretty good. I flipped to a new section, one on leaders from Hell.

Name: Chastity Status: Blacklisted Threat to mortals: High

"Chastity" Is a rather berserk figure of a powerful Nightwalker. It is speculated by top conjurors that "Charity" is the compilation of energies caused by rape. When on the mortal realms by black magic conjurations, he is known to rape almost nonstop, women targeted by him are often killed. Needless to say he should be stopped quickly. He feeds on the traumatic energies given off by such attacks, these he wields with ruthless efficiency against his foes. Against male opponents (He has been determined to be a heterosexual male, likely due to this being the nature of most rapes) he fights with a fury unknown to other demons. The way he fights is similar to the way "Predatoris Primalis", the manner being as if opponents are threats to his reproduction. He commands shadow energies and force magic, typically used for pulling targets close to him for rape or immediate destruction.

Needless to say, this demon must be stopped at the first chance, his traumatic way of fighting and ruthless technique. To defeat him, it is recommended to ambush him when he is distracted. Unfortunately distracted tends to mean a traumatized woman. It is theorized that destroying the head, beheading it or lacerating the torso enough will defeat it.

This guy pissed me off. It's one thing to slaughter the world, it's another thing to humiliate and traumatize the people living there. The demons would surely sick this guy on us, I hoped I would get a chance to kill him. I flipped the page to a higher ranked demon

Name: Solomon Status: Blacklisted Threat to mortals: High

Solomon is a powerful magic wielding demon; he should only be attacked when his defeat is sure. The powers he commands are vast, he has power over elements, force, the mind and seems to favor driving people against each other. His mind control should be considered the greatest threat, only attack him with a well shielded spirit as well as decent physical defenses. The monster of a magician-demon can summon others to his aid, thus the need for defenses against all variety of attack. He favors the ambush strike, where he teleports behind a group of hostiles and turns one against the others. This one he uses as a shield as he uses elemental magic against the others. When in a situation Solomon doesn't prefer or seems doomed, he teleports away, typically leaving a few mind controlled hostiles to distract the attacking force. Solomon always gets his vengeance, his revenge. If someone has made him flee the battlefield or put him in their debt, they become a number one target.

Solomon speaks to and taunts his opponents with mental messages, always by horrible thoughts accompanied by fear and horror. He earned his name by taking the ring of Solomon from the hero himself. Solomon copied the ring and twisted it; he tainted it with Daemon energy. To this day he wears it, it gives him quite a bit of power, though it is hard to distinguish between his power and the power given to him by the ring.

In fighting Solomon, it is best to have a powerful defensive ward specialist protecting others fighting him. The ward specialist would protect his mind and the mind of his company while they attack Solomon. Of course it is possible to fight him alone if one was strong enough, but few wizards can take the harsh strikes Solomon deals, it is better to let the more disposable mortals fight while protected by magic.

I took note of Solomon, he might be the one who was first summoned, the one who would be summoning the other demons. If I could get to him, make contact with him on the battlefield I could trace his energy pattern back to where he had rifts open. It would be those rifts (unchanneled openings to other worlds that allow one to travel smoothly between the connected areas) that would bring the demons through.

I was growing tired of reading up on the demons when I realized that I ahd nothing else to do. I had enough energy, I wasn't tired, all I still had to do in San Francisco was kill demons. I stepped up from my desk and looked around my lab, I could brew some potions, conjure spirits and all that wizardly stuff, I just didn't feel like it. I looked through my other books, each as thick as my fingers spread, bound in leather and exotic leaves. It was strange to live like this, like a gladiator waiting for the next hour in the arena. All I had to do was kill demons, everything else was taken care of. I didn't like it, my life had been about hunting and survival before, now it was only about slaughter. Before it had taken skill, time and planning now it was only rage and combat. I didn't want those to be the components of my life, I needed to have more to live than the ability to kill. I needed something to love, like Beth. Fuck I missed Beth.

I stood at the window looking out at the city; small plumes of smoke rose, their fires were likely being doused already. I felt a single tear roll down my cheek, putting out the fires of my heart. Killing the demons wouldn't bring beth back, no matter how many I killed. No matter how many lives I saved I would never be able to bring her back. I wanted to die. An existence without Beth is an existence I couldn't stand to live. There was no more love, only hatred. No more beauty, only destruction, life just wasn't the same. There was no diversity, no mixing of happiness and sorrow, success and failure, courage and fear. Now everything was black and white. Before I was happy, before I had Beth for a few short days, and I was happy. I was happier than I had ever been before, now she was dead. Now the only happiness was in the hunt and the kill. There could be no failure, only success. Failure once would be enough for anything to kill me; all I had to do was let my guard down for a second and die to some assassin. I had to be brave for the world, put myself on the line or it would be their blood that would shed, not mine. And all because of this damned bestial spirit inside me. All because I had primal strength mixed with my emotional combat. All because I could contain fire within me and let it loose on vampires. I could dodge lightning and fight with alchemy. I could use the energy contained in others to use their own power against them.

Because of this, I was the last hope. Because of this, it was Jack Crest they called on, not some elite warden or powerful sentinel. They called on a man who let his love die, one who had nothing to lose. Fuck this shit. I was a tool to the rest of the world, a big gun to be specific. They were lucky I had nothing better to do, if they were tearing me from Beth I would kill them all. All six and a half billion if I needed to. I didn't know where my thoughts were going; they were running in stupid circles. Stupid circles in the badlands of grief. I turned away from the window.

I opened a random cabinet and took out my potions set, empty vials mixed in with vials labeled with masking tape. I began to mix a base for combat potions. I took out a vial of hydroxyl-methylamino and one of benzene oxidate, I mixed it with others to make adrenaline. I took out a claw and made a small incision on my shoulder and bled into the potion. The clear, moonshine like liquid turned red quickly, four drops slipped into the water. I cast my healing spell onto the combat base of the potion, making a small vial of potent emergency healing elixir. Modern people would call it a healing potion or something like that. Then I took a black pot from a corner of my study and placed it in the center of my lesser circle. I poured the small amount of potion, less than a glass of water's amount, into the black pot. "Bigger, better, faster stronger, power renewed, bloodlust fulfilled. Bring out the strength within, incarnate my energy with deadly force, let my wounds tend to themselves. Bones mend, cuts heal, infections sterilize, but courage never leaves." I murmured as I gestured with my hands over the cauldron and circle. I willed energy into the circle and cauldron as I rubbed my hands soothingly over my strong arms and thought of victory in battle. The soliloquy was the vocal component to the spell, soon the pot grew hot and the small amount of liquid quivered. I looked down into it and thought of war, success and bravery. I continued to channel a small amount of energy into the cauldron, soon the spell finished. The liquid had grown in size threefold and now filled the deep cauldron. I opened the case of vials and ingredients again and filled two score three ounce vials with the potion. I dipped my finger in the last bit of potion, to make sure I did it right. It would have been smarter to do that first, but the potion did its job. I felt invigorated, energized and ready for anything. I noticed that the cut I had made on my shoulder healed itself.

I stepped out of my study after replacing the ingredients case and putting the vials in an ethereal suitcase that I could conjure up to me whenever I needed it. I looked inside my den area and appreciated the irony. I put on a bond movie on my wizardly equivalent of a DVD player and laid back on a used couch. I stared blankly at the explosions and beautiful girls until the sun came up…

I didn't sleep the entire night, I simply wasn't tired. Perhaps my body was on all burners because of the likeliness of my death, perhaps the adrenaline potion had affected me more than I thought it had. Most likely it was my off kilter sleep schedule from the wild. While hunting I would run and track after an animal's day old tracks for days on end, not stopping to sleep. Whether I made the kill or not I still slept deeply afterwards, I must have slept for days a few times. When I woke up I was energized and ready to hunt again, to continue the chase for says on end again. I sought out my friend Jimmy Carquarez, he was an ex marine on the San Francisco swat team now, a dependable young guy.

I flew out my study window and made my way towards the San Francisco by way of the bay bridge. It had been improved over the years, to make it earthquake safe and was now a quite modern bridge. It was probably finished while I was in the wild, there was still construction equipment on it and a steamroller moved slowly along a lane close to the edge, leaving the completed structure. People from the bay area were proud of their bridges, they were modern, safe and recognized around the world. I was sure they would be targeted by the demons for destruction. A shock and awe attack for certain, not to mention it would keep people from fleeing north and east, they would have to drive all through the city southwards. And they had already proven capable of using the city to their advantage. I entered San Francisco proper and gazed around. The new, upbeat financial district near pier thirty nine and the Mosconi center was untouched, it surprised me. The towering glass structures remained intact to the last pane, the cars beneath me buzzed nervously around, drivers hunched over steering wheels. I noted a convoy of American army trucks rolling through the city, each one had a lane all to itself, around the corner a tank wheeled on an empty street. I flew higher, above the skyscrapers and got a view of the entire city. I saw the entire embarcadero in pristine condition, as if nothing was amiss. Of course, just below the surface were demons, conjuring more of their ilk into this world at the very second. China town and Nob Hill were fine as well; it seemed that most of the damage had been done in hunter's point and the two eighty freeway. I looked with eagle eyes towards the area and saw large chunks taken from the highway, overpasses had been completely destroyed. I looked over to Russian hill and saw the US army camp, Jimmy would be there.

Jimmy was a hell of a guy, tough and brave. Not too tall, exceptionally tan and built like a wall, Jimmy stood with me at the Embassy to the Supernatural and fought forces far out of his league with only standard swat weapons. I knew this guy would die violently, I could just tell. He did what he thought was right, for him it meant killing the guy threatening to blow someone's brains all over the church wall. He would probably have been able to have his family with him now, before they had lived in low income housing in San Diego. Now they probably had a fine life here in the bay. Unfortunate timing if anything. Jimmy would be called on to fight the demons, without a doubt the man would give it his all. I always felt bad for soldiers like him, they should send the cowards out to fight and die, let the brave stay and work on more important issues than violence.

I hovered for a moment above the alchemized military camp before setting my feet down on the concrete. There was the hustle and bustle of last night and the sounds it brought merged with the occasional groan of a wounded soldier. Ambulances with doors spread wide lined the sidewalk with the abandoned buildings bustling with EMTs and trauma doctors, blood on their hands. The non injured soldiers were speaking under the scaffolding placed around the buildings, a few contractors stalked their worn wooden boards as they marked clipboards with dimensions and conditions. Cars and trucks never stopped entering and leaving the area, people got in and out of them; supplies left their holds in quite the efficient manner. I looked around at the men and women in and out of uniform and felt like a statue, my fame had gone unrecognized, even with my flashy, star covered staff in hand.

"Sir, this tank is going through whether your magic or not." One of the soldiers said to me as he guided a tank into the square of the hill.

"Where can I find Jimmy Carquarez?" I said as I stepped out of the path of the advancing tank.

"Do you know if he fought last night?" The soldier said to me. He wore desert camouflage and had a tag on his left breast pocket that read Koller.

"Yeah, Jimmy wouldn't have missed the first battle of Armageddon."

"Than he's sleeping in the Canadian support base, in the tennis courts to the north. Be quiet of it, the people there are tired and traumatized. They only let doctors see them; perhaps they make exceptions to wizards."

"Thank you soldier." I said to the man. He casually saluted me and went into that "At attention" thing.

"Yes Sir Mr. Crest." Hardly reached my ears as I jogged away to see Jimmy. It had been too long. I made it to the tennis camp without having to do more than wave at tired soldiers, I searched through every goddamn tent in the tennis courts and believe me, they were numerous. I found that little guy in a tent in the corner, asleep. I tapped him with the butt of my staff, he swatted it away.

"Wake up you lazy son of a bitch." I growled as I smiled down at his tan complexion.

"Good to see you again Jack." Jimmy spoke before he opened his eyes. "Now let me sleep."

"This is the love I came home for, "Hey buddy" and "I'm going back to sleep"?" I said mockingly to him.

"Sorry, I forgot the notecards to my speech in my home, little burnt now."

"Did they get your house?" I raised my voice a little bit; Jimmy's place was so out of the way, it seems like a useless target.

"It was a preemptive strike; those bitches are smart enough to know not to let me sleep comfortably. Still stupid enough to give me military grade coffee." Jimmy drawled, his eyes never opened.

"Hows the family?"

"Doin fine, their all somewhere in east Oakland by now, on their way to a motel an uncle owns in the valley."

"Roadtrip twenty twelve."

"'cept without the zombies."

"Too early to say without any zombies?"

"Que la cogida man? Zombies?"

"We've got a massive war grave just in the presidio, If I was invading the city, which technically I am, I'd do that."

"Right the exile thing. How's that goin for you?"

"Pretty nice actually, brushed up on my hunting, old style of course."

"And the beast, yeah. How's he doin?"

"Damn near excellent, I've gotten over it."

Jimmy's eyes opened "You got rid of it?"

"Nope, I've gone and embraced it, I can't avoid it so why not let it help? It's strength and cunning are mine, I'm also spending a hell of a lot more time on actual stuff rather than resisting it."

"That's screwed up shit."

"You wouldn't understand."

"Perhaps so. So where will you be tonight?"

"Wherever the action is. Are you okay?"

"Sleep deprived, but fine enough to fight."

"See you later man. Stick around, shits about to go down."

Jimmy grabbed my hand with uncanny quickness. I felt an urge to pull away, than calmed down. "Good to see you again. You too man." Jimmy closed his eyes and turned away from me, leaning into his cot. I slipped outside the tent and began to fly. I flew straight up, over the nearby buildings and hovered, the destruction so far would have been enough to mark a great tragedy for the city. And the worst was yet to come.

I flew aimlessly down through the city, heading south to the two eighty highway. It's elevated sections had been completely destroyed, numerous patches of it had been blown up and damaged beyond a usable state. Crews of roadworkers in orange vests and hard hats brought in trucks and such to remove the rubble in their typical, turtle fast pace. I landed down to a large area where traffic was being turned away. There would be refugees in those carts, nowhere to go, nowhere to hide when the demons struck again. I set foot on the concrete and walked towards the rubble.

"Outa my ways boys, got work to do." I said as I walked onto the large area of broken street. It had twisted rebar and concrete blocks all over the highway. The men were working on guiding cranes to clear a path for a bulldozer. Three big guys were rolling some of the small blocks away.

"Well if it isn't Jack Crest wonder boy. You an alchemist as well?" A big balding guy with a clipboard said to me, harsh tone. Some people are skeptics on magic or hate it, as a magician, I can't see why. Also, some people hate me, as me, I can't see why.

"Yeah, for my next trick I'm saving you time." I said. I followed his speaking with a sarcastic sound in my voice. The man signaled to the crane to drop its load and get out of the space I would be fixing.

"Fuck all this magic shit…" He said as he walked from the center of the damage to beyond the edge of the street. I began my alchemy spell.

"Alchemesis" I said as I clapped my hands before laying them on the undamaged highway. My alchemy spell is my pride and joy; I've used it to build just about anything, from furniture to imitation Swiss watches of gold. There is actually an art, Spellcrafting that gauges it, and by professional Spellcrafters, it's a fine spell. It produces a fine effect for no regent, little energy for the effect and has excellent applications. All it does is convert chemical elements from one element to another and change the shape of the transmuted object, but it can do in massive amounts and does it in an instant. In addition, if I focus well and expel far too much energy I can create and destroy matter. I know, its damn well awesome. Though I rarely find need to create or destroy, all I need is around me thanks to the lack of limits on my alchemy. And now I was alchemizing the highway, to make it safe for refugees to drive far too fast on. I moved through the concrete and rebar and the earth beneath it. In an instant I transmuted the whole road to a near perfect state in an instant. I felt the minor drain of energy, hardly the type of thing an evoker like me would bat an eye at. I walked over the repaired section of road as road workers pulled away the blockades and allowed cars to nervously flow along the highway. There would be more breaks in the road ahead; I would have to fix them before nightfall came…

I was three miles outside San Francisco proper when I took to the air on my way back to the army base, the attacks could start within half an hour. I had plenty of time, but I flew quickly back, to be ready to report and all that stuff. I landed to the army base within minutes, it was bustling as ever, soldiers and engineers running all about. Cars pulled around and made themselves ready to ship soldiers out to any section of the city they were needed. I slipped out a potent magic energy potion from my jerkin and drank the dram. I felt the energy course through me for a moment, making my throat and mouth feel alive with strength before the normalization. After the brief, euphoric moment I felt mildly sea sick but energized, I had renewed myself after the minor toll of road work and rushed flight.

"Mr. Crest, good to see you showed up for work today." That one general said to me as she strode towards me. O'Doram, that was her name.

"Good to see I'm not the only one who knows what to do with a Thursday night." I responded. "Any idea where they will be?"

"Inner Richmond most likely, magicians are reporting anomalies in the planar stability, it might be a trap so we've kept most troops back. The problem is that the area hasn't been fully evacuated, people are hiding in churches and basements."

"Who's going to save them?" I already knew the answer to that one.

"You are. We'll drop you a few blocks from the front; we need you to get as many people out of there as you can."

"And there is no other magician or warden that could possibly do this well than me?"

"It's an order, learn to stop asking questions." I remembered why I'm a loner.

"Yessir. Get civilians from invaded space out, kill demons. Got it."

"Good kitty." She said before she yelled something and people ran into assembly. I just stood where I was, there was a line between fighting and being someone's bitch. The soldiers stood there for quite some time in Kevlar with their assault rifles hung over their shoulders, saluting the General. Half an hour passed before a magician ran towards general O'Doram and told her something.

"Anomalies are increasing in the west part of Inner Richmond, mobilization recommended." Really a scrawny clerk of a magician, but that didn't matter.

"Into the vehicles, soldiers! Move out!" O'Doram yelled to the soldiers. "Wizards stay near and behind, Wardens should already be on the scene!" She continued to yell as she signaled to helicopters perched on the rooftops. Radio communications buzzed in and out, the armies of many nations rushed to fight.

I took to the skies with no idea what the fight was going to be like; I just flew a little behind the convoys of troop carrying cars, but above the rooftops of the nearby buildings. I could not let the destruction of last night be matched. Soon I saw what the front would be: Tanks rolled in to support masses of infantry running to cover behind alchemized cement barriers and abandoned Victorian buildings. It seemed like nothing could hold back this swell of force until I saw what was going on a mere forty yards from where the troops were assembling. Demons leaped from rooftop to rooftop, sprinted down streets and howled as they hunted straggling evacuees. Fires had already broken out in a few areas, the screams of mortals mingled with the howls of demons. I noticed quite a few Fel Soldiers mustering under a nigh thirteen foot demon with scythes in hand; they were silent and disciplined, standing in a block. I heard four helicopters somewhere far back readying them, taking off. I descended into the battlefield, beyond the front of soldiers firing their rifles into the oncoming horde. I stepped to a stop on a roof and wasted no time breaking a nearby skylight for an escape route if I needed it. I was a little scared, it was strange for a man like me.

_Why are we whimpering like a pup? We've fought them before, they were small threats. _

"I don't know beast, this is the first time I've ever had to save people. Before it was saving them by fighting alone, now it's literally shielding them from evil."

_To protect the back, keep them with their eyes open and at your back. They would hide in the church something approaches behind us. _The beast thought with me as I reached for my bow and loaded an arrow. I swiveled around and pulled the string to the right edge of my mouth in two separate motions, no sense wasting a shot by trying to be too quick. The approaching force was a large Fel Imp, alone. It moved shockingly fast, pumping leathery wings to help it jump and bound over rooftops. It's claws where it's only threatening feature, but after yesterday's encounter with the imps, they were proved to be nothing to blow off. I took a second to trace its path in my mind, wizardly mind helping by recognizing it's speed and bursts of motion by gait. I loosed the arrow as it slid around one of those metal ventilation tops, it ran right into it. The arrow pierced the body of the imp; it fell flat on the roof.

Something pulled me into the air, by the neck. It was grabbing me from behind and had to be magically silent. More importantly, it was strangling me and had me ten feet above the gravel of the rooftop now, and raising fast. I tried to turn around but I couldn't, it's choke hold was too tight. I had the lung capacity to be able to think before I scrambled, but I worried that if I didn't act fast enough, demons would gather below me. I still had my arms free; I pointed my left one at the demon and muttered the incantation "stickspell". I felt the wand revolver on my wrist snap into action, wands floating around the bracer they came from. The wand on top triggered and sent a bucket worth of freezing water into the demon. I felt its grip shudder, but it remained silent. The grip begin to tighten, it could break my neck if it didn't die soon. I was kicking and squirming for my life before my arcane mind caught onto an idea. I activated my flight spell; it would allow me to have complete control over the direction I was moving. I poured energy into the spell but did not spell myself to move yet. This was a glitch I had found in the spell that would let me ready the spell to move quickly once I started to force myself to move. It was like pressing the gas and the brake of a car at the same time, except your driving a NASCAR airplane. The spell energy I poured into the spell acted as fuel, the more energy I poured in, the faster I flew.

I struggled for breath for a moment, but caught none. Now would be my only chance to kill this unseen attacker. I willed myself to move down, to slam onto the roof beneath me. With blinding speed me and the attacker were pulled from the sky as I twisted around and got above my attacker, putting it between me and the roof. The attacker was a demon with leathery black wings and some type of external rib cage made from strange red energy. I pressed it down at the neck, which was of skin pitch black and rushed for the rooftop. There was a thunderous crunch of demon bone as we shattered the concrete and tar of the roof. I heard the bones that gave it structure crunch as the rigid material snapped with force. Chips of bone flew past my face, blood splashed beyond my arm, hot and stinging. I hurt myself as well in that enhanced fall; my entire body felt like it had been beaten with a sledgehammer. I stumbled around; I was getting a massive headache. I was a little disoriented, but I was out of the paste that my attacker once was. I reached down and picked up my bow, I had dropped it in the attack. I nocked an arrow and looked around.

Remember that church I mentioned earlier? Well some nun was standing outside it bearing a cross as children huddled behind her. They were obviously going to make a break for the front, but they wouldn't make it. Four Fel Soldiers and some new undead like demons were bounding down the street towards them, that cross would do little good without actual god power behind it. I ran across a few rooftops over to a place where I could get a decent shot off on the demons. I drew back my bowstring and aimed at the lead demon, it was the I Am Legend Zombie like demon, bounding over a car and straight for the nun. I loosed the arrow and sunk it through the demon's neck. The body flailed around for a moment before lying completely still, I jumped down from the second story and landed on the street, I conjured my staff to hand. I could probably hit all three Fel soldiers with one blast of fire, hopefully killing them completely if I blew up a car while doing it.

I wasn't used to this type of precision combat magic; my typical way of fighting was big fire, big gashes, not about timing or accuracy. I'm an American, what can I say? I pulled my energy and will to bear and focused it, I would have to use a beam of force spell. I conjured some of my energy outside of me, shaping it as I ran forward into a foot thick by two inch tall brick and sending it hurtling through the air as it became invisible material. It hit the Fel soldier closest to me square in the neck, putting it on the ground. I began to bound; I felt the beast subtly take control of my actions. It doesn't sound like it would be a subtle thing, but when its actions were what you were planning as well, it didn't make such a strange and alien sensation. I shifted my weight forward for speed and landed a bound on the wounded neck of the downed Fel soldier. It let out a manly final screech before it died under my weight.

Swiftly I jumped from its neck towards the next one, it was completely focused on its targets. I made a tough tackle into its rib armor, it swayed to the side and bashed into the one just beside it. People tend to think my speed as a beast was because I was light, but I actually gained some twenty pounds in muscle when I let the beast within loose. Lots of this was in the thighs and legs for pounces and tackles like this, so despite my agility, I had a lot of weight to throw around. Because of this I had put both of these Fel Soldiers onto the ground, the close one swung its axe around to score no strikes against me. I brushed a claw against its unprotected neck; there were massive gaps in the armor these foes wore. Black blood spurted past me, hot and rich. I didn't dare let it touch my tongue, I had experienced the blood frenzy I went into when I could taste the fear and rage in my kill's blood hot on my tongue. The third was on it's feat quickly and easily, swinging it's weapon around like it was a toothpick. I slipped under the first strike and went in at the guts of the creature, long claws sliding off the armor. The demon got a strong, brass knuckled punch in the gut on me; it rolled me away from it. Before I knew it the axe came down, I hardly had time to crawl back away from it before it crashed into the cement. As it tried to pull it's axe up again I pounced, knocking it's skill against the metal bars of the church windows. Twice, a third time did I bash the helmeted skull against the bars before the arms stopped flailing.

I looked up and around, I had completely forgotten why I had just killed those demons. The children, about five of them huddled behind the shocked nun, I had no idea what to say. I took control of my actions again and stood up straight rather than on all fours. I wiped the blood from my face and looked towards the kids. I conjured my staff to hand "Time to go, stay close." I said. I felt somewhat dreamlike, like I was imagining all of this. Combat had a way of doing that to me now, I think my arcane mind did it so I wasn't so traumatized by the kills I made and the horror I saw. The problem was that later I could sit and reflect on the horror and pain I'd caused, not always in the name of staying alive.

"Are you an angel?" one of the kids said. I already ahd an answer.

"Far from it." I calmly responded. We turned a corner away from the Church, the nun taking the back of the line, the children stretched out in a line from me in the front to her. They all held hands, I had never been so scared. I was alright with fighting, hurting, killing and possibly dying, but they were something else. If they died, it wasn't even the blood of someone who died in combat on my hand; it was that of a completely innocent, helpless civilian.

We passed an alley and we all involuntary stared down it, terrified that a Nightwalker might step out from its shadows and gouge its claws across us. For an invasion, the streets were pretty empty. Occasionally we would see blocks of demons mob a few struggling escapers, but they were always far away. But still there were no soldiers coming down the streets. We walked down the sidewalk as fast as the little legs of the children could carry them, but still we could do nothing but crawl our way along. All was silent among the group, they just clenched hands with each other as they scuttled along. Without warning a parked car just exploded right in front of me, fire and force pressing me back. For god's sake it was fifteen fucking feet from me, the fires had licked my face and the bust of force and wind had shook me against the children and a building we were walking by. Thin screams of fear punctuated the air.

"Into the middle of the street!" I yelled. It was stupid because we were now completely in the open and visible, but if there were any more exploding parked cars, they would be farther from me. And the children. We had gotten lucky, I was just happy that my face was on my skull and the kids were quiet. Not in the dead sense. We hurried down the street, I heard wood break in a house just behind us. My excellent hearing put it on the second story of the building, a feminine scream alerted the world. People would be alive in the building for at least a few more minutes, I could save them. "Stay here, if something comes, run to the east." I firmly told the nun. She nodded in the affirmative. I flew up to the second story of the building and broke through the window.

I landed in a bathroom, there was a scuffling sound and some strange demon like voice coming from the other side of a closed, mirrored door. The only way it opened was inward, shit. "Justin, here!" possibly the same woman squealed. I opened the door as quick as I could to see a blonde guy, probably Justin, being pulled down a hallway by an Ex-Lich with magic. He was alive that was what counted. I pointed my staff along the length of my arm and thrust out my left hand, the silver stars that floated seamlessly along the shaft of the silver-wood rod surged forward. With that much energy stored in each star and hundreds of stars, even the small portion of them I sent flying across the hallway around Justin were lethal. The Ex Lich bit the dust for the second and final time. Justin had passed some door frame with no door in the pulling towards the Lich, he reached around it and retrieved a baseball bat. He wordlessly pushed past me, not even saying thanks and went over to the area where the voice had come from.

I hadn't even looked or sensed what was going on, but apparently Justin's ladyfriend was being attacked by a Fel soldier. She was struggling to hold a door closed as the axe bearing warrior tried to smash the inward opening door open to get to her. The warrior turned to face Justin just as he readied to swing the bat in such a small hallway. I'll give Justin credit, he got a solid hit on the demon, but the axe went right through the bat just a second later. Weaponless, Justin tried to hit the demon with his fists, but it didn't even register on its helmed face.

The woman opened the door and shouted some words, they had power. I looked absently at her hands, they were making magical gestures. She was trying to cast a spell, it was failing. The demon readied its axe against Justin, over its head. Justin ran towards me out of the reach of the axe. All of a sudden the two of them were flanking the demon and yelling their loving goodbyes. It was too captivating to move. After a frantic glance from Justin, I took action. I unsheathed my sword-wand and stepped forwards. The demon was taking its two handed axe out of the hallway's carpeting when I stabbed its exposed neck. The demon went down without a sound except the spurting of blood. Thank god for that flaw in the armor, the crafting of it was all terrifying decoration, not defense.

"Justin! Thank god, are you alright?" The woman said as she hugged her beloved on the carpeted floor, just on his side of the fallen demon. Her tone was desperate and loving, Jack knew it too well.

"I'm fine honey, I'm fine." The man said to her. I broke up the moment.

"Time to go, woman, can you use magic?"

"I'm hardly blooded, all I can do is move a bit of energy." She said as they separated from their embrace.

"I'm going to cast my flight spell on you, when we jump from the window, you put it all on that."

"I don't know if I'm strong enough!" she said louder now, even more desperate. We were on our feet; I lead them into the bathroom I came in by. I smashed out the bottom shards of glass and saw the children down there huddled around the lone nun, all praying profusely. The nun's faith hurt my eyes to see, the graces of angels surrounded her in a aura of golden glow only magicians could see. I cast my flight spell on all three of us and picked up Justin. He squirmed a bit but I wordlessly jumped from the window and hovered before I hit the ground. I laid him down less than gently as the woman stood at the window.

"Vix, you have to come!" Justin yelled as he got up. Sure enough "Vix" jumped from the window. I let Justin move to catch her as I walked towards the kids, guarding them. I hated this mission. Vix and Justin were soon following us, apparently she made her jump alright. We continued at a hurried pace down the street, explosions were becoming more common.

All around us black smoke rose up to the heavens, fire reached out at us from windows. The front was close, could see demons leaping from rooftop to rooftop on either side of us towards where the soldiers would be. It took us a matter of minutes before we met them from the opposite side. It was a shootout in a set of four way intersection stretching out for five or so blocks. It was probably the largest battle the twenty first century had ever seen, and the invasion wasn't even over. People were fighting on multiple stories of buildings, from magicians and snipers on the rooftops to heavy hitters on the middle stories, the ground was held by the largest amount of troops, firing their assault rifles from behind any cover they could get. Ten or twelve troops shot from behind a long row of fruit stands outside a corner grocery store, with four more firing from the counter and door of the store. Alchemized cement barricades were common place in the streets, almost every car there was a burnt out, already exploded. Numerous bodies lay in the streets, soldiers and a lone magician. There were many defeated demons dead in the street, but they just kept coming. I saw an elite team of conjurors, alchemists and three wardens walk just around us, hustling. They were probably searching out the rifts that would cause this endless stream of foes. On the demon side, Ex liches were firing their massive swaths of fire at the troops, it didn't set buildings on fire probably due to wards but I sure as hell wouldn't like to see what it could do to a man. A few nightwalkers stalked the charging hordes; it seemed as if the magicians on the rooftops were focusing on diminishing their power until they simply faded away. The main assault was carried out by those little undead like demons and Fel Soldiers, they just came out of nowhere leaping for the troops of many nationalities. They were shot down before they crossed the street, always in groups of one or two but once a mob of them, fifteen strong charged a barricaded corner building and it took a magician from a nearby building enough effort to make him collapse to form a spike pit beneath them. It was actually a comical way for them to die.

And to think I had to cross this shit, with civilians in tow. I whipped up a shield spell, than added onto it. I put many of them on, facing all directions. It was tough to maintain but I found I could walk with the group all around me. We entered the intersection. And of course the first thing that happens is a nightwalker spots us and stabs at the shields. It was difficult to maintain my shield spell, it was usually for blocking one hit, but it would do it well. It also took more energy when it was taking stress like hits, so a powerful swipe from a Nightwalker was the worst thing I could have. The kids screamed, I just focused my energy and kept walking. It burned to keep the shield on so long, I felt my will wavering. I began to pant halfway across the street, it was too hard, I couldn't hold on. I gritted my teeth and refocused, this was getting too difficult. I took three final steps under the shield before it collapsed around me.

When you're putting all your strength into a spell and it fails, it comes back at you, it hurts. It makes you dizzy and depending on the spell, can make you unconscious, insane or dead. I fell to the ground at a crosswalk in the human side of the battle. I smashed my face on the cement, it hurt like shit. My mind felt like it had been boiled and then frozen, than replaced in my head. I pushed myself up, I was amazingly dizzy. I took two steps and fell down again, this was just fucking stupid. Migraines formed in my head, my thoughts froze in place. I stumbled and smashed against the side of a cement barrier. The kids must have ran to safety or something, I lost track of my little group. Something was pulling me skywards. Fuck. Demons were cackling. Double fuck.

All of a sudden I was jerked back down; I realized I had been pulled over the barrier. I coughed my thanks and laid down. The troops around me fired their big guns and someone put me in a fireman's carry. I began to feel better quickly, my mind unfroze. I was regaining my senses, I wasn't dizzy like a drunk anymore. I squirmed around and almost fell off the stretcher two big husky EMTS were carrying me on.

"Yo boys, drop me I'm fine"

"You sure Mr. Crest?"

"Call me Jack; I'm bad but not as bad as others."

"If you say so." He said quietly. I got out of the stretcher and flew home. I needed sleep, I hadn't slept for quite some time. I backtracked through my head for the last time I slept, it was the day before my hunting of that mountain lion. I had spent a day in pursuit following its tracks, than I fought it the day of the first battle. That was the night of few skirmishes, than the daytime, I had spent it repairing buildings and roads. Than tonight. Three days of no sleep was normal for me, sometimes I would pursue prey for a week before killing it. I didn't eat or sleep, I just pursued my quarry. But that was just running and taking shots, not smashing around in combat. I landed on the roof of my old flat, hopefully the old lady who rented it was still around. I walked inside, just like last night. Maybe in the morning I'd have another look through my demonology material. In the mean time I went to sleep on my bed, it made me cry. Me and Beth had It's-the-end-of-the-world-why-not sex on this bed. Why did she die? It was too unfair, too far. I was intimate with death, but this I couldn't get over. I had made the shield spell perfectly, I was taking great care for her, but still she died by the bullets of a homunculus. I wanted to die; I reminded myself that I would have plenty of chances for that later before sleep dragged me to the next day.

Sunlight was streaming through the windows of the bedroom to wake me up. I lazily slid out of bed, my headache was gone but I still wished I had gotten more sleep. You see, when I would chase for three to seven days, I would sleep for at least a full day in some secure area after eating my entire kill. A few hours of sleep was nothing to me. I only felt awake again when I remembered the city council would be meeting on my sentence today. Hell, if I could get there on time and argue well, I might be able to stay here. I looked at a mechanical clock in my living room, remembering the time was three o clock for my meeting. It was four. Fuck. I whipped on my clothing and healing sharkmail, I had to get to City hall, pronto. I leaped out an open window in my study and flew at top speed towards City Hall. My energy stock had recovered a bit and stabilized, I didn't have the insane level of strength I did a few days ago but I was capable. The desperation in me fed the flight spell quite nicely, I was inside the hallway towards the speaking chamber where the debate would be held. I walked swiftly down the hallway before I showed my staff and face to the two guards standing before the thick redwood French doors that led inside the room. The voices of San Franciscan Council members rung in my ears.

"Mr. Crest is as much of a threat to us as he is to our opponents, he should be sent to meet them head on so we can be rid of him!" One of the elderly council members yelled. I looked around at the unaware council members, they didn't seem to see me. The room had many benches and desks, each one matching, each one a work of art. They were made of marble with velvet covers, they were arrayed around so that there was a open space in the center of the covered ampitheater.

"With all due respect mr. Grovel we cannot let a civilian magician go in on a suicide mission like that" Surely no one noticed me. I took advantage of that and went into my subtlety spell. I developed it when I was in the Sierra Nevada mountains, it made me silent and not immiedietly visible. It was made to be instantaneous and without gestures or words, so it ad a few flaws. If one were to look at where I was for more than ten or so seconds, they would see me, and I couldn't cast spells while under it due to their vocal components. I felt myself grow less and less real, I hid partially underneath one of the desks so that it would be hard for them to see me. Of course, one of them would have noticed the guards open the door, probably even seen me and just not said anything yet, so it was in a way a waste of my energy.

"Civilian Magician? Mr. Crest has already proven himself to be a force to be reckoned with, as is attested to by the only recorded person to be in touch with him." He meant the suspicion that I had killed Beth. I wanted to burn this desk away and kill the voice that said that, it sounded just like Mr. Grovel. "Mr. Crest doesn't fit in any category we might have to label him with because we don't have a "Live in Terrorist" group of people. He'll be safest when he's dead." The voice continued. I ended my spell and stood up.

"You mean your interests will be safest when I'm dead. I bet you threw in with that Hanas guy; he bribed you off to not investigate the twisted practices he tried, when I killed him you tried all you could to make me miserable. Like spreading that lie of me killing Beth." I paused. I felt rage boiling within me. I had to fight to contain the beast from leaping forth and clawing at him. "You deceiving motherfucker. You made me a heartless killer to them, all to keep your damn money. Are you fucking happy! I'm a murderer because of you, and you want me to be your tool, your weapon to protect you!" I paused for breath and drew in the spell energy from the rage I was building up.

"Calm down Jack, we won't kill you. Mr. Grovel is being a little extreme here. We should remember that Jack has participated in combat these last two nights, including saving a number of orphans last night. All without a payment incentive." A new voice said. I turned towards the voice; it came from a middle aged woman in a pantsuit of turquoise color. "Jack is a wild card, but for now he is on our side, let him do what he wants provided it is in our benefit." The woman said, her hands folded in front of her. Nine heads bobbed in the room, not including my own. Eight council members and the mayor, who serves as the ninth in addition to his office.

"Indeed Ms. Rumsey, but please remember that Mr. Crest was specifically charged with never returning here for the threat he was to our city and our people. I can remember his snide comments as he left my office, he despises it. As Mayor of San Francisco I think that Mr. Crest should be kept at an arm's length." I turned and saw my disgusting little mayor. He was a dirty little man, a guy who hides behind protocol and formalities. "And we are required by law to call him Mr. Crest, Jack is too personal." case and point.

"Mr. Crest does not like being talked about like he isn't here, Mr. Crest thinks that he should at least be regarded as a man rather than a tool. Let not my skills make me into a tool." I spoke to them in the third person to emphasize my point. "I shouldn't have to remind you about this, but I'm a human being."

"Mr. Crest, human being is a far stretch for one like you. Sentient, yes, humanoid, yes, but like all magicians you lack a proper soul, proper emotions. This is proven by your ease to anger and ruthless fighting ability." Some politics junkie waiting in the wings swooped down with his words. "Damned by the Lord, I think you should go out tonight and die, I will look down on you from Heaven." The now religious man spoke. "I cannot wait until all of your kind is put to death for the destruction your pets have caused; it will not be long now though. Soon we will all pass on to heaven, leaving your people to suffer in hell; I cannot wait for the rapture..." The man trailed off, he seemed to be done taking the spotlight for his fanaticism of divine politics. I was deeply offended, in the manner that gives you the sinking feeling deep in your heart.

"Hath not a Jew hands? I to have a soul, I to have emotions, of late they have been grief and rage. If I lack a soul, explain to me what part of me has this addiction to the dark magic. What part of me if not my soul is tainted with this ease of slaughter and eternal destruction?" I spoke back to the man, he seemed taken aback. I had him on the fanatic ropes now, time to finish the job. "I have loved another, I have accomplished goals, I have made friends and enemies, if this twisting emotional path I walk does not make me human as you, what does?" I paused, enough of this racial kindness and shit. "Crawl back to your interpretations now, fanatic, go and hide behind your "Holier than thou" bullshit." I finished and turned away from the man, back towards the council members sitting in the close seats to the speaker's floor. "My apologies, but may we have a meaningful discussion?"

Someone began to clap, slowly and with much drama. "Welcome to politics, new kid. We don't have meaningful discussion." The clapper said in a soft voice. He was a middle aged Asian man in a white suit, peaceful in expression.

"For god's sake Mr. Chen, do you have to be such a pessimist?" That Grovel character ranted.

"I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist and I must say that this would be one of few helpful, applicable conversations I have had in my time in office. In my eyes Mr. Crest is a wrongly accused man, he should have never been forced to leave, never forced into such shame. Look at him, is that the countenance of a murderer?" Mr. Chen said, he stood up and gestured to my face. I couldn't say that I could look at myself without some measure of disgust, hence my humbleness. "Mr. Crest is an innocent man who killed a criminal in vengeance for the death of a loved one. If we will not merit him time again in our city to protect us, than we must merit him the respect we have for a human in mourning." Chen paused; I noted a single bead of sweat sprint down the side of his face the other council members could not see.

"Thank you, Mr. Chen, you may return to your seat." The mayor softly said to the room. Chen sat down without taking his eyes off mine. "Can the council come to a decision on Mr. Crest's leaving now?" He seemed to be growing impatient.

"Mr. Mayor, I have scarcely had a chance to speak towards my case, I think it might change the verdict of the council."

"Mr. Crest, civilians are not allowed to speak in council debates, if you would like to argue, you should have made an appointment."

"Really? If you didn't want me to talk, you shouldn't have told me of this hearing. I'm taking the damn floor." I paused for a minute and stepped into the speaker's clearing in the center of the desks. "I am Jack Crest the Vampire Slayer; I'm here to protect humanity from the invading demons. I understand that I am breaking my punishment by being here, but it is for the cause of protecting humanity. If my jailers will not free me for such a cause, to use my immense power..." I exaggerated, by magician standards my magic was poor for my bloodline, it was all the Strength of the Beast. "To protect mankind, than my jailers are violating the justice they claim to be upholding. If I have to fight your cops, your guards to protect these people than I will, the question is if you choose to waste your resources trying to hold me back." I realized I was being too dramatic again, perhaps my power was getting to my head, perhaps it is the curse of fame. The room was silent, people regarding my words. I was much too dramatic, for sure.

"Another display of courage Mr. Crest, but it is that behavior that means we can't trust you. If you're willing to fight us, than I'm afraid we can't have you near the city."

"Indeed, if you're going to make threats like that, you are a threat that we have to take care of." Two voices jabbered off in perfect harmony about how dangerous I was. I was remarkably hungry; I formulated a good line to say before I left.

I drew in my breath, my chest swelled with the hot air of the room. I didn't wait for them to finish. "Very well then, if you find police men and soldiers willing to take me away from here, to risk their lives in angering me and later being on the battle field without me, go ahead." I paused as I walked towards the door. In one last dramatic moment I said over my shoulder "Of course, those who anger me don't often have a later time in life." I pulled the doors open, both of them and walked out into the hallway. Fuck politics.

I left the building and walked a few blocks west, I would have flown but I needed every little bit for later tonight. Despite being worried for human kind and the battle tonight, I was strangely relaxed. I guess a better word is dethatched, I tried to draw in the energy it brought me but there was little to get. I remember a time when I got my magic energy almost exclusively from emotions, but that was long ago and before the Beast within me had awoken. Now I got energy from the thrill of the hunt and triumph, it was more dependable but when I was in a rut I was really down. It was along the same line as drawing in energy from happiness, anger and sadness, but this was focused on taking in the top of the world, untouchable feeling that gave such an excellent reward in spell energy.

I found my way to an excellent steakhouse, it was known for its exotic combinations as well as it's well done classics. Not to mention the sky high prices. I sat down in the steakhouse like I owned the place, for my purposes I did. A few soldiers in their green uniforms sat in a booth in the corner, I took a two person table in the center of the restaurant. A pretty blonde waitress brought me my menu, she spoke in a soft voice about the specials for the day. It was a high end place, the lowest price tag was twenty five bucks, everything looked excellent. The focus of the restaurant was on steaks and cuts of beef, each one adorned with sides of exotic vegetables or strange sauces. I figured I could buy whatever I wanted, my checks probably wouldn't bounce. I started out with something basic, T bone steak marinated in a mild hot sauce with hints of cinnamon and apple. Three of them. I got ceaser salads for sides, I wasn't one for leaves but I could stand them. I savored a few glasses of harder alcohols like whiskey and Cognac, I hardly felt buzzed. It only took the Hispanic cooks twenty minutes of calling out to each other and sizzling for my three steaks to arrive, for the quality of food, the speed was amazing. I stared out into the sunset as I savored the heat and apple after taste of the steak, which was juicy and hardly cooked, as I ordered it. Four glasses of cognac later and I still wasn't buzzed, I started to order glasses of Rum and Coke. Three steaks didn't do much for me, I ordered four more. These were nigh raw too, these ones were seasoned with a bit of paprika, cardamom and served with garlic rice. It was delicious like nothing else. I picked at the sides, but the lettuce leaves and arugala weren't nearly as tasty as the delicious flesh.

I should have been thinking about the fight I'd be going into in just a while, I would leave when those soldiers got radio communications. Hopefully I wouldn't get hurt, still shed some opposing blood. I wanted to get pumped for the fight but I just couldn't, this was too nice. I sat under a lazily spinning fan, drinking slowly now that I was a little buzzed, slowly savoring the meat now. The sunset was too beautiful, shining through my half full glass. I wished I could have shared this with Beth, it was such an excellent moment. The sun slipped just beneath the horizon when the radio started buzzing, the soldiers ran from their booth. I shed a little tear, on the inside. I wrote out a three hundred dollar check and left.

"Where we going boys?" I said to the troops as they piled into a jeep. There were a surprisingly large number of them, possibly a whole company. Each in their green drab, each pulling guns to ready positions and slipping into Kevlar.

"Pacific Heights, it's pretty bad up there." One of them said.

"See you there." I told them before I took off into the air. I had a bad feeling about tonight, the detachment had ended and I realized how tired I was. That couldn't be good, especially if it was "pretty bad". Those troops didn't look green, but a full company seemed unbelievable at this point in the fighting. I flew down to where I saw a large mass of wizards, knights and troops gathering. It looked like some type of mash up between the world's largest dungeons and dragons thing and modern soldiers of many advanced nations. I landed in the crowd, within minutes General O'Doram began to speak.

"This is the plan." She yelled out to the mass of warriors. People on her right and left yelled out translations of this into many languages. I noted Spanish, Mandarin, French, German and Arabic. "To the north is a portal held by demons, they fill the area to three blocks away from the it with defensive fighters. The portal is in a four way intersection, once we control the intersection we have to hold it until the portal can be shut down. The demons are strong and numerous, if your comrades fall in combat, avenge them. Make their deaths worth something, this is a battle we cannot lose under any circumstances. If the demons take a foothold within the city all will be lost." O'Doram ended abruptly. She could use a lesson in dramatics from me, but that was later. People translated her words for a moment before she continued. "We will move down Washington Street until we reach Divisidaro. From there we will move north until we reach Pacific Avenue, where Pacific Avenue meets Divisidaro is the intersection where the portal is." The translators made similar commands in different languages; some had troops taking a different path. This was probably to avoid putting all of our eggs in one basket or helping clear the way for the greater force. Within a minute helicopters buzzed over us and the troops moved out. They were going through the city like a SWAT team, always keeping some troops facing the back of the main column, some looking towards the rooftops, always did five men aim their guns towards an alleyway should we pass one. A few of the dumber demons came at the group of advancing soldiers, they never stood a chance. I was walking staff in hand witht eh largest group of troops, some hundred strong. I wondered why there wasn't every damn soldier possible with us, it didn't make sense. It felt like the world was abandoning us to this fate and we were only postponing the inevitable with our fighting.

The Vikings had a place called Valhalla for a heaven, you went to it if you died in valiant combat. I wonder if I apply for such a place.

Within twenty long minutes we were facing down the demon hordes. The men broke line and went for freshly alchemized cement barriers with drilled precision. Apparently the military wasn't wasting any time incorporating magic into their plans. I used alchemy to make a wall in front of me block an alley way and a sidewalk, so I could pop out and cast a spell than get back to cover. It seemed like a great plan, I murmered "stickspell" with each exposure to the attack and let some magical hell loose until one of the Ex Liches recognized my staff in my right hand as I popped out to attack and targeted my little shelter. Let it be known that my clever combat ends here. The wall exploded above me, I scrambled out of it and into the aftermath of a fireball. I was lucky that it wasn't a lasting fire attack, and so were quite a few soldiers hiding behind the cement barricades, each scattered around and burnt from the force of the explosion. The Ex Lich that was cackling in victory fell from the sky he was casting from after a Canadian guy far back in the Divisidaro fired his gun.

I fired off shots from my bow, taking out Ex Liches, but the tide of demons was sweeling. Machine gun fire clattered around the intersection but it was slowly slipping into screams of agony. Within minutes, the screams of agony would be the silence of those to never wake again. Demons charged the barricades, few got by the machine gun fire of the terrified troops. I noted the thundering of hooves coming from down the Divisidaro and whipped around. There could be but one source of the sound.

Plagueriders. They were supposedly related to Nightwalkers, it was a mistaken summoning of them that brought the Bubonic plague to Europe. If they were here now, we were already doomed. The plagues they carried didn't come from any virus or bacteria, it was an infection of the soul. The four summoned in the Black Plague were weak, these ones would be strong. They were well feared demons, but in form they were your typical scythe wielding death bringing demon that rode a dark steed. Their steeds were horse like, but each impact of their hooves on our world spread their plagues. The Black Plague strain as eradicated by a team of godly druids years after the Plagueriders were banished by a team of powerful conjurors. That couldn't happen again especially in our global environment, where apparently a sick man in Japan can infect a goat in Africa with ease. I began to fly; we needed Wardens here, pronto. It has been speculated that Wardens would be capable of effectively dealing with Plagueriders, if anything it might let me fly myself out of there.

I turned about to look, I didn't see any Wardens in sight. I heard a clattering of armor and pounding of hooves, men screamed. I turned to see the advancing Plagueriders and saw what I could have only dreamt of at the moment. A crew of wardens, twelve of them was facing charging towards the plague riders on foot, each one glowing with divine favor. Imps clung to their armor, but their little hands burned when it touched their flesh, their swords glowed silver and gold with holy power. Prayers were screamed and exorcisms flew from the mouths of the Wardens, it only took a knick in the semi-skin of the Plagueriders for them to glow gold and dissipate into nothing. I reminded myself to never cross the Hand of god. That was a big move on the Demons; they were bringing out their big guns early. I almost didn't notice their dastardly plan.

With the Wardens that would have been taking on the demons in melee or healing fallen soldiers taken away from the main fight, the press of demons had become a push. The soldiers were fighting for their lives, it was quickly becoming a losing battle. Sure, the hell planes would have to take time to take able demons to train to become Plagueriders but that wouldn't matter if they had all the six-seven billion souls of Earth. Something would have to be done about that portal, something big. Something with a lot of balls. Something like me. I stopped thinking, I had tried clever and intelligent combat, all it had gotten me was a few kills and almost dead.

I got on all fours and sprinted through to the intersection with the Wardens, their weapons glowing and breath heaving. I tackled one fast demon with a bear's strength, I tore it up and jumped towards the next, two kills in two seconds. I whipped onto my back legs, which are technically my true legs and let my magic do some damage. I made a flinging gesture across a line of Fel Soldiers and burst them to flames, then made a short incantation. When the incantation finished I clapped, hard and loud. It stung my palms but the spell worked, strange enough in itself. I focused the kinetic energy of the clap and let it blast forward. It hit the portal that the demons were channeling and disappeared. I actually felt the energy, which had been within my grasp, cease to exist. While I puzzled over this, I felt a gouge in my side. Than another, same sensation of blinding pain. A Fel Soldier had gotten me twice with his scythe and was walking towards me. I clenched my side in pain and fell to the ground. I looked up at what I expected to be my last view. Six demons, smiling with sadistic glee looking down at me, the Fel Soldier lifted his armored foot above my face. He was going to curbstomp me. I could not accept that, I would not be killed by a common drudge curbstomping me. Something stabbed my legs, it felt like an imp. As the metal encased foot came down, I reached up and grabbed it. I tried to push it back, it only came down slower. The demons before me began to kick and burn me with their claws, the foot kept coming for me. I felt the strength of desperation flow through my arms, I got angry.

When I let the beast go free and let my primal rage break down all the barriers in my mind, I become something horrible. I don't care for my own security, I just kill like a rabid dog. The pain faded away, all I had left was strength. I threw the leg back, sending the Fel soldier stumbling back. I jumped into the air and screamed my main fighting spell. "Pyromenthil!" I roared in my loudest, most terrifying scream. Fire leapt out from my hand in a contained explosion and incinerated my attackers. I ripped with suddenly appearing clawas at a nearby demon, a banshee screamed. That can be a traumatizing thing but I didn't even hear it. It's magic shook my body but I held fast, I hit it with a powerful blast of dark magic. The banshee swelled, than died. I let myself go into the shadow magic provoked rage, destructive magic flew from ym hands all around me. Something jumped at me from the sky, I rolled over fresh carnage and jumped onto it and brought it to the ground. I bit deep into its neck, it didn't bleed. I jumped back in disgust into the claws of some new demon, I burned them both in an instant. I hit a dying soldier with my magic, I didn't care. Fuck the world, this was what I lived for, I could not die! I jumped again into the air and looked down on the battleground. Wardens were pointing at me, I didn't care. Bullets ripped by me, I didn't care. I just wanted that blood taste in my mouth. Hot, live blood flowing into my mouth, spilling over my face and claws. I jumped a Fel Soldier and tore at his neck. These ones bled, and the blood felt better than I imagined. The blood felt so good over me, I let the fires within me rage all around.

A wave of incinerating heat and flames swept out from me, demons were torched and Wardens scrambled for their lives. I didn't care who I killed, I wanted blood. More blood. I looked towards the portal, demons crawled nervously from it. With clawas slashing I tore at them, I let my explosive magic free on them. I reached into the metaphysical level of life where the fabric of the portal consisted of and tore at it. I devoured it's energy, I consumed the malice it was meant to bring to human kind. I destroyed it, I took it's magic for my own. I felt more powerful than ever before, I turned around t unleash it.

And there was nothing there. The soldiers were gone, the wardens were gone, the magicians were gone. Every demon was dead; the intersection was scorched and destroyed. Buildings burned around me, I came to my senses in a rush. One thought came to mind, my only company in my destructive wake. Beth would hate me for this. I fell to the cement, dead or dying.

I floated through the darkness of my mind with a raft of weary grief. Beth really would hate me for this, I hated myself. I had probably killed people on my own side of the battle, and in horrible, damning ways. I had torn my soul up for the sake of destruction; I might never be the same. Who knows what harm had become of my body? It seemed unimportant in comparison to what I had done to myself, I had made myself such a destructive machine that I betrayed the figure who ruled me even in death, sweet Beth.

Beth was fearful of the beast after it had awoken, she was smart like that. She had seen the destruction I caused at the Embassy to the Supernatural, that horrified her. I didn't even know what this would have done to her if she was here, I didn't want to think about it. She had died when I brought her to fight with me against a twisted alchemist who had learned to transmute flesh. While that might have been great, he had used it on innocent people to make them homunculi, it was there that she died under machine gun fire. She had left cover to attack; my shield spell was protecting her as she did it. I didn't notice that I cast it with a flaw until she was on the ground from four bullets to the shoulders and back. It should have been me, it was my fault she was dead. I missed her like nothing else, I would give up all my magic, all my strength just to kiss her one last time. In her memory I tried to live how she would have wanted me to live, ignoring the taint of shadow magic in my soul so it would not grow, trying to protect innocent people and being ethical and righteous overall. The only wish of hers I did not deliver on was ignoring the beast. I argued that she did not understand what it was like with it within my soul, I could not ignore it as much as ignore having brown hair.

Guilt and grief were tag teaming me into submission, I let them. Beth wouldn't even want me if she was there with me, why should I live? Beth was all that I lived for during the few days I knew her well, when she died her memory became my destiny to uphold. And now I had gone completely against her, I felt cold. And lonely, more lonely than I had ever felt before. AS a rite of passage back in Alaska to become a shaman to the Inuits I trained under, I walked barefoot across the Arctic Tundra for a full day with only magic keeping my intact. That had been the loneliest I ever felt, it felt like nothing would ever be there for me. Now, even the memory of my only friend and love was something that brought me pain. I would never have another ally, never have another love, all the others were only people I brought to death. I still had accomplices, but they were so distant. Jimmy was there, but he didn't fight with me anymore, Michael was there but never by my side. Wyatt could be considered a friend, but he seemed to manipulate me for his greater scheme of things. I began to slowly slip into the physical world as my head spiraled into depression.

The whole world was fuzzy with pain. I felt some type of anesthetic enter my arm, the area near it was numb. I tried to move my neck, there was a pillow blocking most of my view. My neck was too stiff to move, so I just sat there, taking stock of myself. Ten toes, each well seasoned with pain were on my feet, which felt broken. My legs were still there, I tried to flex the muscles but they were cut up and sore. My thighs were remarkably okay, all I noted was a deep piercing wound in the upper left muscle. My abs were intact, still sore though. Fuck, was anything I had in perfect condition? I moved my checking up to my shoulders and pecks, they were okay, and they were sore as hell. My right arm was burnt from my wrist to my elbow, my right hand was unscathed. My left arm felt broken, I could hardly twiddle my fingers. Fucking shit, that would mean I couldn't do any intricate spells like closing a rift or counterspelling. My neck was still too stiff to move, fuck. My face felt alright, I noted a cut behind my right ear and a small nick under my chin. Something with claws had grabbed my throat. My spell energy was low, the very thought of having to pulse my will out onto the world made me tired. I was breathing heavily from whatever I was doing; taking a moment I noticed that I must be lying down. Judging by the pillow in my face I must be in a bed, probably in a hospital. Yeah, that made sense.

I went back to sleep. When I woke up I felt much better. I noticed that my foot was no longer broken, my neck was movable and my left arm was mended. My body was still a little sore all over, but I recognized this as the soreness I got from healing magic. I was nauseous with something; I noticed it was the aura of the divine. I turned my head around, someone was talking, and people were laughing. I looked around from my bed and saw Michael playing cards with his three kids. Angelica was focusing some holy favors on me, it would be the source of my nausea and CFD pains. It was certainly the source of my healing, she was working on my burned right arm. After a short prayer, I found it to be good as new. Angelica seemed exhausted, she turned and said something to her husband and children. I tried to move as she walked towards the door; Michael was on me in a flash, pushing me back down. The kids were smiling; Michael was looking down on me with a fatherly smile.

He looked godly, he wasn't in his armor, but I noticed his sword, a massive two handed weapon leaning against a wall. He had a light golden beard, more like five o clock shadow, except this would be like 5 o clock dawn. His grey eyes were the color of cross iron, his teeth like a whitewashed wall. I must have looked like hell. I turned around and heard something for the first time.

"I'll just change out of my robes and we'll go home, be right back." Angelica said n her obnoxiously happy voice, turning away from the door she was in front of.

"Okay honey". Michael turned away from me for a second to say to her. But Angelica didn't open the door; the door was opened by something else. Opened is probably not the right word, destroyed fits it better. Three smashing blows on the door from a scythe sent the door's pieces around the room in seconds; Angelica had hardly time to react.

Her head flew from her neck in one clean swipe. The children screamed and I slid out of bed in the stench of blood and agony. I was still sore as hell, stiff and cut up but we were under attack. "Jack, get the kids out!" Michael roared as he unsheathed he sword and drew his cross out of his shirt. The man had courage I would never know.

"Michael, come on we need you with us for this invasion!" Michael uttered some prayer under his breath and I felt a wall of divine force come between us and the demons. He was staying, oh god.

"Jack, I'm going to stay, my duty to the lord is great but I have to save Angelica." He was in denial already. Michael reached inside his pocket and pulled out a golden cross four inches high. It looked like some type of heirloom, he handed it to me. "Give this to my eldest, Peter. He will need to carry the Burden now." He said as he swiped a tear from his cheek. I was awe "Carpe Diem!" Michael screamed at the top of his lungs as the shield went down. Swords parried and hacked, claws reached and scratched. I stood there awestruck at his bravery and stupidity before I jumped into action.

"Alchemesis!" I said wearily as I cast my alchemy spell. I opened a hole in the wall behind me so me and the kids could get through. They were stunned and terrified at what had just happened, I had to jerk one of them through the gap while yelling "You heard your father, get out!". The dazed kids, three girls and two boys, left the room quietly. I had never really known Michael's kids, I knew that they were of almost all ages and that he loved them like nothing else. It kind of hurt to take them from their father, but I couldn't think of that right now. Right now I had to get them the hell out of here. The pain was pushed aside by my adrenaline, which was feeling a little overworked and underpayed of late. The kids ran through the wall into a room that was on fire, the flames licking up around the door. Shit. I developed a short plan and pushed the kids wordlessly behind me.

I drew my will up into an evoker's mindset and pointed my index fingers at the door. I drew in the rage and energy of the fire; I took its energy for my own. I kicked through the door into a burning corridor. I noticed demons pouring into the room down the hallway; they looked like Oni and other brands of eastern demons. I got the kids into the new hallway around the corridor, there would probably be a door somewhere near. I looked out the window and noticed we were in a hospital, probably UCSF. We got to the middle of the burning hallway, screams filled our ears and the clang of metal and claws could be heard downstairs. There was a stairwell, from what it looked like as we descended we were in the second story. The kids slipped in front of me, only his eldest girl stayed behind me, they were all crying. I had no idea what to do.

A lone demon with some type of spiked club took the bottom of the stairs, it brought the two handed weapon up in a fast upswing. I tried to bring the beast to the physical world, it wasn't listening. I kind of slipped down the stairs at its knees, like a tackle. The club smacked me in the back, but it didn't have the strength of it's full swing. Needless to stay, my back hurt like shit. I was on top of the demon at the bottom of the stairs with what felt like a broken spine.

"Alchemesis!" I clapped my hands and let the energy from the fire flow out of me and into the spell. I smacked my hands on the demon and forced myself to do a flesh transmutation, it was difficult and time consuming even for a decent alchemist like myself. I went through it's alien flesh structure and ripped apart the carbon fourteen molecules it was made of in groups of five. Slowly the gashes appeared on it as it struggled beneath me. I just let my dead weight keep it pinned to the ground as I tore through the atoms that made the demon up. I poured all my heart and soul into the spell, I was just so drained though. I had little energy to expend on it, but at least this was a surefire way to kill it. Blinding white lights obscured my vision, it felt like something was chewing on my soul. After a moment the demon stopped struggling and swinging, it's grey skin had massive gashes in it in oddly perfect circles. I lazily stood up and got the kids moving again. I felt like I was sleepwalking or a zombie. A nurse ran in front of me pursued by a demon. Slothlike I poised my fingers like they were a snake's fangs and stabbed twice at its neck, poisoning it. First a deadly dose of neurotoxin hit its central nervous system with the first stab, than an anesthetic with the strength of ten horse tranquilizers hit it with the second stab. The demon began to spasm, than collapse in three seconds. It was dead in six.

The door was conveniently twenty yards in front of us, the kids sprinted for it like there was no tomorrow, I walked calmly and coolly. Four of them got beyond some marble columns that made up the front of the hospital. Still the teenage daughter, I put her age at seventeen was closest to me. I felt a large aura, that of something powerful, hiding. It wasn't friendly, I figured I was about to get killed. A massive arm shot out and grabbed the teenage daughter by the waist and pulled her out of my line of sight, behind a column. Double fuck, the last I saw of her was blonde hair whipping out and flailing. I got the feeling Chastity had come to town, just at the right time to. I was almost too tired and weak to care, but sure enough I felt around for my Desert Eagle in my jerkin. It wasn't there. As a matter of fact, I wasn't even in my leather jerkin; I was in a hospital gown. I didn't have my bracer of wands, I could conjure my staff but that was about it. Another arm whipped around the column and grabbed me. Before I knew it, it had thrown me against the cement steps that were leading down and away from the hospital. More screaming. Triple fuck I hurt.

There was no adrenaline rush hitting my system, I feared the worst. My wizardly, sophisticated mind remembered the survival instincts I had, fight or flight. Due to my predatory nature it was typically fight now, if something challenged me I killed it. But now I had passed the time to react, my body was in escape mode, but I still had to save my ally's daughter. I turned and looked at the demon as I stood up. The demon was almost humanoid in shape, but comprised of the almost two dimensional blackness of the Nightwalkers. His arms ended in flesh like tissue, hands too large for his body. The blonde daughter was screaming in trauma, something had to be done quickly. From the looks of it and his energy aura, he had been out all night. Quadruple fuck.

I extended my fingers with great effort and prepared to gesture for a spell, it would pull that daughter away from him. With trembling thoughts I began to cast the spell that would pull her lightening fast through the air towards me. I had never had such a hard time casting a spell; it was like trying to write backwards. While your upside down in the dark. After two seconds the spell tugged on her at the shoulders and brought her flying to my side. Something clicked in my head and I felt the Beast take control. New courage rose into my heart, new confidence and strength.

I jumped at the demon now, claws out and on all fours. A bolt of shadow magic hit me square in the chest and sent me flying off the stairs again, into the street. I rolled and got up, bounding in front of the daughter.

"Does puppy want to play?" The demon moaned.

"Play rough." The thing almost laughed.

"Let me have her, you will not take her."

I stood my ground, shifting to a bearlike stance. "Come and get her." The girl was frozen up, just standing behind me. I strafed left, bolts of shadow magic came at me in a deadly fusillade. This time I was ready for them, I ran forward and slid over the concrete to dodge, my toughened skin didn't even scratch on the artificial rock. I bounded towards Chastity with bestial vigor; I was like a mother bear protecting her cubs. Except in this case, a foster father bear saving his own ass as well. I connected with his shadowy flesh, his hands smacked me off. I rolled with the hits and jumped over a few more shadowy bolts of magic. I landed on it's neck and clawed quickly and harshly. I ignored the searing pain of its freezing skin, I just clawed. I wanted that blood again; I felt the bloodlust growing in me. If I sated it, bad shit could go down. If I didn't though, he could kill me. The cold was freezing me through my claws; pain was again clouding my vision. I felt blood deep underneath his frozen skin, I wanted it. Something grabbed at my back legs that I was holding in his abdomen, it threw me off balance and I fell off of him. A massive foot broke a few of my ribs, I know because I heard them snap and the fragments fly into my stomach. The creature began to run, pain immobilized me. But I didn't want to stop fighting, I had finally gotten this shit going, nothing could stop me now.

The demon was fleeing, I had to chase. I loved to chase my foes, it gave me joy like nothing else. With this newfound energy and strength from the thrill of the chase, I pursued the demon. It ran into the street, pain blocked the way. I jumped over it, the mental obstacles and the physical ones got mixed up. I sprinted like nothing else after him in the form of a cheetah, but still he ran faster and farther away. I put in every breath I had, I almost rolled four or five times by tripping on myself. Still he got away.

And than he was gone. He ceased to be in my sights, I activated my magic enhanced anti invisibility vision. He was gone. Whatever comes after quadruple fuck. I collapsed on the street, few demons were around me, soldiers and cops poured out of the woodwork as I fell down and blacked out. The asphalt was hot, the night was growing a little brighter by the moment, I was cool with dying but got a bad feeling I wouldn't.

I was in a M.E.R.L.I.N. facility, one of their interdimensional strongholds. Someone was putting me through major healing magic, it was a kind I couldn't master. I opened my eyes and sat up, I felt great in comparison to last night. My wounds were all sealed, my headache was gone, the comparative lack of pain made me feel great. This in turn brought me spell energy, not a lot but it was all I had. Sure casting spells right now was like trying to sprint a mile after swimming competitively for hours, but at least I had something. I looked around, I was on a bed, pure white sheets made of linen. The room I was in was an apprentice's cell, I hadn't trained in one but I knew what they were like. Small, uncomfortable and ineffective. Sleepiness hit me like a train, but something pushed me down on my stomach. Soft hands, slight nails, I connected the dots lightning fast. I was probably hallucinating this; I was in the grasp of a succubus.

"You won't have any side effects from the healing Mr. Crest, can I call you Jack?" A feminine voice, I had never heard it before. I thought of whipping around and going apeshit on the succubus, but it probably wouldn't do anything. All of this might be imagined as my mind is destroyed by the succubus. The hands rubbed my back; I recognized it as a reiki massage. Warm oils, charged with magical ointments were applied, something was seriously wrong here. I whipped around and extended my claws and pressed against the woman. I almost killed her as I pressed my claws up to her neck, I just nicked her.

I was pressing my claws towards the neck of a fair young woman, hair blonde, eyes insanely silver. Her body was shaped like one who has never worked, she had little muscle but sexy as hell. She was in an arousing little shift, alchemized silver threads. What she lacked in physical power she made up in magical strength. Just beneath the surface of her aura, massive amounts of power and spells lay in wait. I suddenly realized that this was not in fact a dream.

The girl gasped, I realized I had moved too fast for most people to see, snakelike. "Jack? Do you know who I am?" The girl said in a whisper. I had no idea who she was, but she was powerful. "I am Helen." I didn't believe her, it was impossible. Helen was an idea that had been ended before the second world war, it was a well bred magician. It began with two full blooded magicians, they had a daughter. Since magic is most powerful in the daughter, Helen has always been female. So the first Helen was a second generation wizard like myself, more powerful than her parents but still human like. But they bred this one with a second generation male, and their daughter with a second generation male so that the wizard bloodline grew stronger and stronger until a generation twenty wizard was born in nineteen twenty nine. At this point, M.E.R.L.I.N. seers discovered what would happen in world war two, the death camps and all. While us wizard kind was forbidden from interfering in mortal happenings, we could change what we were doing ourselves. The Helen project was stopped, the twentieth Helen did not have a daughter. The immense power commanded by her died with her, officially. Ever since world war two the Helen project has been considered unethical eugenics, if this girl was seriously a child of Helen, then she should be helping in the war effort.

I decided it would be better to follow the old etiquette for dealing with Helen, treat her like royalty. "Sorry, can't trust anyone these days." I don't really care for royalty.

"Understandable." Helen said. I began to note how young she was, she could hardly be seventeen. And such a whore for seventeen! "Claws please Beast" Helen commanded as she touched my wrist. I retracted my claws and brought my hands away from her neck. She relaxed.

"So, you are Jack Crest? I must admit, I expected you to be a bit taller. I've heard so much about you…" God, did she think I would sleep with her? It seemed like that, sexy little get up, compliments, massage. What the hell was wrong with this girl, she hardly knew what sex was but she wanted it "Is it true you killed every demon at the Divisdaro?" The combination of sexual advances and happiness at combat pissed me off.

"Demons and more." I said to her as I got out of the bed. I was naked, I didn't really care. She blushed and turned away.

"I don't think that's how you should act to a superior wizard Mr. Crest, something along the lines of excusing yourself to don clothing seems appropriate."

"Forgive me, but I don't believe you to be the superior wizard." I said. I looked around and found my leather jerkin with my magically enhanced jeans. I put them on, I found my bow and arrow to sling over my back.

"You don't regard me, Helen, as a superior wizard to just measly Jack Crest?" You could hear the arousal in her voice, she wasn't used to being disregarded.

"Helen, when was the last time you healed a wound? The last time you saved an innocent human? The last time you repaired something? The last time you developed a spell all by yourself? I've done all that in the last fucking week."

"Do I sense some unease Jack?"

"It's probably just me being turned off by well bred whores."

The girl was taken aback, she stood up. I felt the energies in the room swirl around, I was ready to activate my shield spell. "I don't take kindly to such insults Jack, apologize!" Her voice raised, I had the perfect plan.

I drew in my breath, filling my chest. I slid around and got right up in her face, lightning fast. "I will not apologize to one who is gifted with such strength but refuses to use it! I will not bow before someone simply because they are the fuck of their parents! I'm pretty damn sick of people thinking they can manipulate me!" I roared right in her face. I saw the terror in her eyes, she took a step back, I advanced a step. "You think you've got balls? Do you think you're stronger than me? Let's see it than bitch!" I turned on my heels and took ten steps away from her. I spun again and lashed out with pure force from my hands, she whimpered as it slammed into wards on her. The next thing I knew stone hands were pulling me away from her, restraining my arms and mind.

A new voice popped into the room, Helen recovered her composure and conjured clothing onto her. "I can't believe this Helen, you were supposed to be meditating on combat!" Someone came stomping into the room, they walked through the undecorated wall in a semi transparent state, when they got to me they were fully visible again. "And your talking to Sentinel Crest? What the hell are you thinking!" the man was in her face, just as I was. I was okay with that until he turned around and faced me. "And you Mr. Crest, what the hell do you think you're doing! You just attacked the greatest hope humankind has in this invasion! What the hell are you thinking!" This guy was big on thought, he must be a seer. "I will have you removed from the M.E.R.L.I.N. for this!" I wasn't a part of the M.E.R.L.I.N., good try though.

"Funny story, I'm actually a warlock, not associated with the M.E.R.L.I.N. is that why I didn't get the memo on us reviving the eugenics whores?" I would sue my lighthearted banter to win this guy over to my side. Or get me killed.

The man made sounds of pure frustration. I kind of laughed.

"Jack, what makes you hate me?" Helen pleaded to me as she unfroze.

"For a wizard of such strength, you're dumber than I am. It's the eugenics, the promiscuousness, the holier than thou attitude, and your British accent. You're not getting your goddamn colonies back motherfuckers, stop bothering us." The man smacked me, typical wizardly smack. It hit me with the strength of a raging four year old and the accuracy of a blind man. I couldn't block the smack, my hands were still bound, but it hardly stung. I laughed again. Helen was crying.

Remorse pounded me like waves on the beach, I felt bad for making her cry. I didn't want that to happen to her, she had no control over who she was born to. That sinking feeling gripped my heart and tugged. I felt the restraining magic loosen slowly, Sentinels were at this point pouring into the room. There were twelve, each in robes of purest white, led by one with a redwood staff.

"What happened here?" One of them began to channel some spell, I recognized it as one that read the recent past of an area.

"He raped her."

"To be expected of an animal."

"Do we kill him?"

"We'll put him to death if he survives tonight." The wardens whispered among each other. They whispered because they feared I might be able to read their minds, but I was no philomancer, all I could do is hear them.

"I did not rape her, Jesus Christ people. Just read her mind, I hardly touched her. Now can I know who the hell just smacked me?"

"I happen to be a superior Sentinel to you and Helen's personal guard and mentor." The new man said. Helen stepped behind him so he was directly between me and her. I was silent for a moment before I began to piece together the pieces.

"What is your bloodline?" I asked the man.

"I am regal in comparison to evoker scum like you. I come from the Lafayette-Ruskarizon line, eighth generation." The Lafayette-Ruskarizon line was a french-russian marriage of wizards that created a dynasty of powerful necromancers and alchemists. The pieces snapped into place all of a sudden. He was her protector and mentor; she probably registered him as a father figure. I mean that's what fathers do right? Provide, protect and advise their children, kind of the one that catches anything that falls through the clean, tight cracks of motherhood. He was also an extremely blooded wizard, probably one of the most bred male wizards on the planet. Also about twice and a half her age.

"You're also her father." I made a sarcastic gasp as the rest of the room practically fainted. Helen stepped away from him and looked at me and him like a spectator following a tennis match. He was stuttering around in his words, I had nabbed him. A long moment of stuttering later he came out with some words.

"I am not the father of Helen, the one who sires her is always anonymous and protected by the founders of the project!" His voice was raised, I turned to the sentinels he brought with him. If his methods were traditional, he had a specialist from each brand of magic: Necromancy, Evocation, Illusion, Philomancy (thought magic), Alchemy, Druidism, Elementaltics and Conjuration.

"I think I'll ask the Philomancist about that." The most applicable use of Philomancy was detecting lies and thoughts of betrayal. One of the center Sentinels, presumably the Philomancist, shook her head in the affirmative.

"Sentinel Gregory Lafayette-Ruskarizon is lying about not being Helen's father." The Sentinel said as she made a quick gesture. A new order of gasps from everyone. "You hid that pretty well with defensive Philomancy Sentinel Lafayette, but you let your guard down." That was the obligatory explanation for why the Philomancist knew that, they always revealed it like detectives solving a high profile case. The room was silent like a tomb, I couldn't believe that Gregory had just made such a blunt description of his job. I mean come on, he practically described what a dad does. Massive political upset very much?

"What the _fuck?"_ Helen said. A clapping smack sound, Gregory had a huge red handprint on his right cheek. "How are you my father! And you didn't tell me! You _bastard!_" She slapped Gregory again, left cheek. I should probably go. Before I could turn I felt someone make time slow down, it was the Evoker from the team of Sentinels. The spell was expanding the moments; all around our universe time was slowed down. We could do more in less time because of this, like escape wherever I was so I could go back to defending San Francisco.

"Helen, calm down! I'm still the same man, I am still your guard and mentor, nothing has changed!"

"This is why you don't tell her you love her Gregory, it's very unprofessional." One of the Sentinels responded.

"No you're not Gregory, all of a sudden you're my father, but you never told me! Why wouldn't you tell me that? I've never known any father, but you could have solved that!"

"I did my duty to the M.E.R.L.I.N." Gregory hung his head in shame, maybe the guilt weighted it down.

"You did a twisted job poorly, time for your just desserts. If you weren't going to admit to being her father, which is screwed up enough because you let yourself be bred like a racehorse or something, you shouldn't have told her you loved her. For Christ's sake, I just demonstrated how sensitive people can be and you think everything is going to be fine between you and her?" I let a pause take the room before making a witty remark for Helen's sake. "Can I go now?" not even a chuckle.

"If you think your so good at this Jack, why don't you give it a fucking try! What was I supposed to do, let Helen grow up without knowing that anyone loved her? To let a force this volatile risk falling into a state of depressing that may very well end the world?" Gregory exclaimed, his voice was growing fiercer, I could still out do him. I was about to spew out some dramatic insults about eugenics and his idiocy before Helen suddenly composed herself.

In a very quiet, calm, collected manner Helen spoke. Tears still streamed from her eyes, her hands shook silently. "Sentinels, remove this man from the area. Sentinel Gregory Lafayette-Ruskarizon, I discharge you from my guard and the M.E.R.L.I.N. effective immediately." She said before she gulped and rasped. "I would like a moment alone please."

All of the Sentinels led me from the room through a subtle, simple door and into a hallway. We waited there for half an hour in passed time, but to us it was more like a full hour. I got some more energy for spells by the evoker; he had a whole lot of energy to imbue. If you don't quite understand the brands of magic I've been talking about, I'll be up front about it. Schools of magic are often represented as an octahedron, each school has its opposite school on the opposite side of the octahedron. There are Evokers like myself focus on gathering spell energy, a good evoker can get energy from almost anything. Our spells are big and often poorly made, but they cost little energy and are easy for us to cast. Across the board from us are Necromancers, who focus on death and undeath. They bring corpses back to life by making a "soul" of magic energy to power it, it gets a pretty bad reputation despite its great applications. With necromancy, people could have ethical slave labor and a better alternative to that shock-you-back-to-life thing. Illusion is a pretty basic school; it forms a hologram like field with energy. Illusionists tend to be results based people, their opposite is Philomancy. Philomancy is thought magic, it concerns mind reading and changing emotions. Philomancy can be controversial because it borders on mind control, which is tainted magic. Alchemy and druidism are the most famous and hateful opposite schools in magic. Alchemy focuses on changing one thing to another, in an alchemist's dream world, one thing could be anything. Druidism focuses on things staying how they always were, especially the natural world. Alchemists like to use nature for regents and test areas, druids do everything they can to stop them. Elementics is the practice of controlling the base elements of creation like energy, fire, water, earth, and air to work in harmony for the benefit of the caster. Conjuration is it's opposite, I know that it is kind of a stretch. Conjuration focuses on harnessing creatures from other planes to do our bidding, as well as protecting ourselves from being conjured onto other planes from otherworldly conjurors. Conjuration is one of our greatest defensive assets in this manner, but when people conjure otherworldly creatures to our universe, it opens the door for others to enter this world. Like demons.

When Helen came from her room, her demeanor was still sad. I felt horrible for making her cry, technically twice but the second time wasn't really me. "Keep track of Gregory Lafayette-Ruskarizon. In the meantime, Mr. Crest has something to teach me." Uh oh. "Jack, if you would." She motioned back inside the room. Whatever type of interdimensional structure the M.E.R.L.I.N. had, it was certainly spacious. I followed Helen into the room, relieved that she kept her clothes on. "I need you to tell me what fighting is like Jack." She was still calm and collected. "How can I stand being there in the horror of battle, still fighting? What will I feel like as I cast at the demons? How do I survive such a fight?" She sat down on the bed I had awoken in, it was the only one in the room.

I stuttered as I thought of what to say. She had recovered so much, so quickly it was astounding. Her clean cut efficiency made her seem robotic compared to the lusty, emotional earlier version I saw of her. I finally came out with an answer "Combat is something no one lives through. Once you've felt the adrenaline rush, the rage and fear boiling within you, you leave a part of yourself on the battleground. For some it's their life, for some it is their blood. The lucky ones only lose their innocence."

"But how do you live after it?" She implored, laying down on the bed.

"I don't. If I could go back to the day I started my fighting career, I would stop myself. I wish I could just run and hide, live under a rock somewhere and be a pacifist. But the fact of the matter is that I'm a gifted fighter. I have the strength of the Beast, as well as good fight magic, if I didn't fight, who would? What more suited entity would protect humankind if I did not? I survive combat by blowing stuff up and tearing foes apart. I survive the horror of it all by reminding myself that it's protecting those who would not survive. I know that if I make my life horrible in this way, I scar my mind and body, that others can have a decent life." I hated talking about fighting like this, it brought back the memories of fighting vampires, that twisted alchemist Hanas and all those soldiers dying to the exploding truck. And Beth, sweet mother of god Beth…

"I think I understand. Those who are strong have to fight for those who cannot fight themselves, correct?"

"Correct, but you don't understand. You won't understand until you've fought for them, seen the terrified look on the faces of those you save. Than you know why you fight." I concluded. Wordlessly Helen got off the ebd and put her hand on my chest. I was prepared to push her away if she started up her little show again, but I was bound in place by something. She started to read my mind, I tried to resist her but twenty something generations of wizard makes for a powerful spellcaster. She pushed through my chain link fence of a mental resistance to see what was in my mind. I was rooted in place as she rooted through my memories, my spells, energies I'd controlled and emotions that had left their scar on me. I felt her enter the memories I had of Beth, than the ideals I had of living up to her standards. As she would have wanted me to live, free from the beast and my taint. She explored the Beast within my head, frightened by it's predatory strength. All of a sudden the spell ended, she took her hand off me and stepped back. Her face was almost frightened, mostly puzzled.

"You're not so tough at all…" Helen remarked. "You fight well, your strong and powerful, but on the inside you can't let go of her." She paused, I knew she was right. "It's been what, a year since she died? And you're still in that lab, holding her as she died." She breathed heavily, I felt a single tear race down my cheek. "For one so powerful, you can't deal with your own emotions." Wordlessly she hugged me. I didn't hug back, that would betray Beth. Never would I love another, Beth was the one and only. "Jack, let her go. You've got to move on, you can miss her, grieve for her but it can't take over your life. All you have is sorrow and rage, let it go. You'll never be happy like this." She patted my back, I was fully weeping now.

"It's not about being happy, I've got to bring her back, something has to work." I rasped out my words between gasps for air. It was true; I would do everything in my power to resurrect Beth, unfortunately that had never been done by a mortal.

"Even I can't bring people back from the dead Jack, not how they were in life. Souls don't return to us." Helen let go of me. She glanced at something, presumably a clock. "We've got to get going, it will be dark soon, and the attacks will begin." She led the way out of the room, into the hallway. Through a maze of labs and practice rooms she led, to a large rift. There were some thirty Sentinels at the mouth of the rift, M.E.R.L.I.N.'s elite magicians. All waiting on the command of a seventeen year old girl. Jesus, the Helen project could be screwed up.

"When we cross the rift, we will be assisting the mortal troops in defending the city from a shock and awe campaign. We're in for a sky fight, gargoyles and gorecrows, so… um… stay high up." She was pretty well spoken for a seventeen year old. Looking through the rift I saw the business section of San Francisco with black shapes flying around the skyscrapers. "Sentinels, out." She concluded with some trembling in her voice. I accompanied her through the room towards the rift, Sentinels marched straight through it.

"Jack I'm scared." I already hated what I was becoming. I felt like a foster father to her, I should have kept my mouth shut and hoped that one of the other Sentinels said something.

"Calm down, you've got to have a cool head to focus for casting. If anything, it would be better to die for something like this than to live as one of our strength who did not fight."

"But I don't want to die."

"First rule about being a hero. It's not about dying, it's about kicking ass." I stepped through the rift. I was falling, quickly through the cool night air. I heard screechs and screams through the air, I dove like a falcon. The thirty Sentinels all around me were engaged with flying abominations of a demon species called Gorecrows. They were more bats than crows, leathery wings and fangs. I dove towards the earth, passing the sky scrapers in a matter of moments. I saw one last figure leave the rift, which was just an image of the plain room we had assembled in hanging in the sky. The rift closed, Helen must have gotten to the sky.

I saw a bus explode on the ground only one hundred feet in front of me, in a horrible way it was relieving. I floated through the air looking for foes to pick out, one huge one showed up pretty soon. It was a dragon, fire leaking from between its massive teeth. I was planning my attack against it, to fly for it's wings and burn them away when I was attacked. Something came screaming out of the air on silent wings and smashed into my back as I hovered above the battle. Glass windows on buildings zoomed past me, but I was blinded by the pain of claws clenching my back. I couldn't turn around, even with the help of my powerful flight spell.

This whole demons-grab-me-from-behind-thing was getting bothersome. I reached into my jerkin, which had been preserved exactly as I had left it, and pulled out my gun. I pointed the Desert eagle backwards in my hand and fired repeatedly. Screams from behind me as the creature flapped what I presumed to be wings to pull us out of the dive. I kept firing at it until the clip ran empty and we were only ten feet off the street. With a burst of energy to my flight spell, I circled around to be on top of the demon as we flew parallel to the street. It's claws pulled out of my back before I kicked it hard enough to smear it across ten feet. I flew back up to the height I was before, my back was bleeding and in pain soaked. I had to take out that dragon, it was at least easy to find it. It was clinging to the pyramid building, one of San Francisco's landmarks, and roaring like nothing I had ever heard before. Concrete broke off under its massive claws and powerful arms covered in red leathery hide. It was surrounded by a small flock of Gorecrows, fire spread around in front of it's gaze like deadly headlights on a car.

And to think that even in my combat readiness, I still had the occasional thought of what the San Francisco city council might do to me, or how bad Helen was probably feeling right now. Those non-bloodthirsty thoughts brought me around to mourning Beth, I needed the adrenaline to hit my system. I needed it to push the sorrow and grief from my heart, to let everything be consumed in my fire and rage. My retractable claws tingled at the edge of my skin, my wizardly mind pulled in all the energy it could get, but still I was nervous and distracted. I wasn't a hero, I was just a guy. My life had been taken away from me that night with the vampires, all I had gotten back was a cape and a gun. The world expected me to be brave, but I was just a civilian magician at heart, one with this goddamned beast in my soul and a taint of dark magic. No one understood that even I could be scared. They all thought I was brave like Michael, I wasn't. All I am is bloodthirsty and stupid, Michael was truly brave. Right now I needed a whole lot more of the stupid part failing bloodthirst.

_Jack, bravery is strength in the face of fear._ Wyatt floated his words into my head. _Do you think that anyone on this earth is never afraid? _I guess I'm a little wrong. _Everyone is afraid when they think they cannot accomplish what is necessary, the brave ones are those who don't let the fear incapacitate them. Be strong Jack, for us all_. And then he was gone from my head. As suddenly as he came, he left, and he left me with a swell of energy in my chest. I don't know if it was a gift from him or the inspiration his words gave me, but I felt ready to live again. To fight again for humankind was suddenly a challenge I could not refuse.

I flew forward, towards the dragon with newfound courage. I poured energy into the spell and felt the night air brush my cheeks with a chill. Towards the building I flew, I felt the heat of the dragon's breath warming the air. The Gorecrows and Gargoyles floating around it noticed me, screeches broke into my focus. The dragon leapt from the building as I pulled higher into the air to dodge the mob of chasing demons. I swirled around in the air and formed a dog fight, these guys were no trouble for me to dispatch. They had to flap their wings and turn slowly, my flight spell could turn on a dime and maneuver effectively. I dove towards the left through the orb of the dog fight, fire burst from my hands and burned a Gorecrow. The Gorecrow screeched all the way to the ground as it burned, before the others caught onto my position I came back to the top, staff ready to attack. I thumped a gargoyle with it, right in the base of the wing before I turned around and fired the dizzying array of stars into the dogfight. I lost coordination as the stars swirled around in a labyrinth of light, force and color before they thudded into gargoyles flying below me. Some of the dazed creatures were easy targets for fly by slash attacks with my claws, nothing could catch me. The dogfight thinned, than dispersed as the remaining Gorecrows flew from me. I lost track of where the dragon was, but finding it would not be hard. God I loved the sky.

The demon-dragon was tearing apart a sky scraper made of glass and steel like it was a sandcastle when I showed up. If I could tear up its wing tissue or damage the base of its wings, it would just be a lizard hanging one hundred and fifty yards in the air. I flew in past the thrashing tail and landed on its back, clinging to a bone-spike of it's decorative armor. The thing thrashed around and knocked me off, before I knew it I was falling and it was diving towards me. I hadn't given it credit for being intelligent and quick, and now I was paying for it. Fire leapt out from it's jaws and singed me, it felt like I had jammed my face in a microwave. The burning sensation turned to pain as I fell out of the fire, luckily nothing on me caught fire. I would probably have minor first degree burns just about everywhere if I lived through this. I activated my flight spell and dodged a tail swipe. The beast was chasing me now, that was something I could deal with. I turned really quick around a building and pulled up, the dragon wouldn't be able to make such a sharp turn, than I would have the drop on it.

I put the plan into motion on a tall brick building, I dodged around the corner as fire rushed around me, than climbed three stories. The building's wall exploded out below me, a massive dragon head came through the gap. The head turned up and jumped away from the gash in the brickwork, masonry and brick dust forming a cloud above the hectic streets. I put my spell to the limits as I climbed higher before the dragon could get it's wings moving. I would hide on top of the building and hit it from below with my bow. That should work, if anything I can drop off the building to dodge the fire breath. I slipped over the top of the building and drew out ym bow with magic. I knocked an arrow made from the a bear rib and pulled it back. When the dragon pulled over the top of the building, I aimed for the base of the wing again, it hadn't seen me yet. When it circled around, I released the shot after realizing it would have to slow down to almost a hover for a second. The shot pierced the bone and muscle of the wing where it attaches to the main body of the dragon, like the shoulder on a human. The beast howled, fire leaked from those swordlike teeth as it's voice rumbled across the city. The dragon crashed onto the top of the brick building, the rumbling of such weight hitting the old and damaged structure was insane. The corner that had been damaged would probably be an unsafe place to stand, the roof might collapse.

Fire sprang from the teeth of the dragon without warning, its roar continued through the fiery assault. I pulled up my shield spell around me and my bow; the fire hit it with force and heat. I had to focus and grunt to hold it in place, the fire leapt around me and seemed to stare at me with alien hatred. When the fires went down, I tried to draw and nock another arrow, but before I could do even that, the tail of the beast whipped across the rooftop. It was faster than a snake, and I had plenty of experience with snakes when I caught them in the wild. The tail smacked into my right side and shoulder after smashing through a few ventilation openings. It sent me flying through three more of the metal vents before I crashed onto the damaged corner. The beast roared again, and that really did me in. I was hurt and bleeding from breaking steel with my back, but the roar was where my troubles began.

The trembling Bassano of the roar collapsed the roof beneath me and I plummeted a story down amongst concrete and rebar. I coughed dust for a good long second before the dragon attacked again. This thing was fucking psycho, it just kept destroying and attacking. The roof above me was grabbed by a large set of harder than steel claws and ripped like a sardine can. The dragon was looking down into the rubble pile I was standing in, fire still leaking from between its teeth. The claws raked the rubble pile, I dodged left and right to dodge their swipes as I ran further inside the building. The roof was being torn up above me, I ran towards massive metal containers, round in shape. I got onto a metal catwalk and looked down as I caught my breath for a moment. I was in a brewery, panting heavily. I loaded an arrow and drew back my bow, bow trained on the massive opening of the roof and wall from where I entered. The dragon might be flightless now, or at least not as fast, I needed to get to the outside and fly. I didn't have the chance, the beast landed in the opening and roared. I was out of range of it's fire breath, and it would have to break the big fermenting containers that I was by to get to me. I took the shot, it thudded in between it's eyes and bounced off the scales. Shit. I reloaded and took the shot again, fast like a viper. This time I hit it in its right eye, the beast screamed in agony as blood spurted all around from the wound. I might have to kill it in here, that could be done. In pain the creature thrashed through the building towards me, I jumped off the catwalk and fell with cat like grace among the brewing equipment. Shredded steel flew past me, a burst of heat concluded that the creature was chasing me and thoroughly pissed off. I ran out the door of the building just in time to see a small explosion within the brewery. Breweries had burning parts? Could the dragon blow itself up?

The front of the brick building chased me through the street as the dragon burst through the second story of the building. I turned and let my bow fall from my hadn, I could magically retrieve it later. I conjured up my staff for casting and flew for the dragon, I was above it and it was stuck in the cloud of dust. I flew right for its head, I could probably kill it by alchemizing a spot open in its scales and attacking it. I landed on the dragon's skull, it bucked around fiercly but I stuck with it. "Alchemesis" I muttered, trying to keep calm and focused. The scales were strangely made of molecules I had never encountered before, I had to remove atoms from the stranger ones until they were molecules I could change to air. The dragon threw me off it's skull and turned to face me on the ground, it wasn't going to fly. Fire engulfed the street, I jumped to the other side of a parked sedan to hide from the fiery fury. When the fire breath abated, the other side of the car was completely melted away, the upholstery was on fire. I charged through the air for the dragon's weakened spot on its skull, a bite from those sword-teeth almost got me.

"Pyromenthil!" I roared as I pointed my hand and staff at the weakened patch of skin on the end of its neck. Fire conflagrated the skin and bone, the dragon roared as the force of the aimed explosion fractured its skull and broke its neck. The roar was cut short by the swift hand of death, I stood on its shaking corpse as the dragon breathed it's last jets of flame. I was tired, but the kill was a new source of strength for me. I took in the energy from the dragon's dying inner fire, it was powerful. The spell energy it brought me made me feel like I could take on the world once again, power thrummed through me and my staff. The silver stars the orbited the silver-redwood shaft of the weapon swirled faster and in greater numbers, I felt like a wizard again.

A few terrified civilians ran through the streets helter skelter, chased by demons. They looked at me standing on top of the dragon corpse with awe, their pursuers stopped dead in their tracks. Human soldiers were spread thin across the entire financial district and Union Square. Based on the amounts of gunfire I heard, they were holding China Town and Nob Hill. Above me the stars were still blocked out by the Gargoyles and Gorecrows, Sentinels and helicopters were in the midst of thinning them out. Bodies plummeted to the eart riddled with bullet holes or charred to a crisp, that was their work.

I didn't know what to do next, I just took to the skies once again. The demons were afraid of me now; they thought that I was invincible to their small groups. I knew that it only took one second of letting my guard down to get myself killed. I hurtled up into a gorecrow, it didn't have time to react before I clawed out it's neck. The body fell from the stars, I jumped off it and targeted a gargoyle pursuing a Sentinel. I activated my wand bracer and hit it with freezing cold water before my earth bracer's bolt of force hit the gargoyle. The gargoyle's rocklike skin was used against it and the creature completely shattered like gravel under a sledge. I noticed Wyatt's mental messaging system pushing at my conscious, I let it into my mind. I realized it was a group message, he had sent the same thought to everyone in the sky.

_Mortal forces are coming in with airstrike over Financial District. All Sentinels to Market Street and Fulton intersection. One minute until mortal attack. _So that's what Wyatt did in these times. His message system was excellent, it was good to see the extreme powers he wielded be put to good use. The combat in the skies dissolved quickly, I was towards the bay side of the Financial District so I could take pursuers off the other Sentinels. There were only thirty or forty Sentinels in the sky, likely the only decent sky fighters in the M.E.R.L.I.N. I fired bursts of magic form y staff and used the razor sharp ethereal stars to keep the other Sentinels free of pursuers as we got out of the skies over the Financial District. The gargoyles and Gorecrows seemed to not suspect anything; they were not the most intelligent of demons. We grouped up with a team of mortal troops, they looked Spanish. The troops shot down any chasing demons and guarded a section of the road beneath us so we could land. Moments after we exited Union Square at the end of the Financial District, the loudest sound I had ever heard burst my eardrums. Machine gun fire burst out from helicopters and jets all over the dog fight, accompanied by explosions of destroyed helicopters. The planes swept through the Financial District with speed I could only dream of and shot up the Gorecrows and Gargoyles that still remained in the air. Screechs and screams tore the night sky behind the machine gun fire as the greasy black Gorecrows and harsh, cold Gargoyles pelted the ground. It was an amazing spectacle of destruction as the bullets broke up the elderly buildings in a cleansing maelstrom.

A minute slipped under the machine gun fire, than everything was still. I realized the sound had made a rumbling in the concrete beneath me, and this stopped. Everything was still, the whole world hung in place. If I wasn't on the edge of a battlefield, I might have felt tranquil. People murmered about what had just happened in various languages, I tried to connect to Wyatt. _Wyatt, what now? _

_Sleep Jack. Enough conflict for tonight._ I crawled into an alleyway, pulled a cardboard sheet out of the trash, and went to sleep.

I awoke in the same bed, in the same room, same multidimensional living pocket as I had last time I fell asleep on the streets. Helen sat in a chair by my bed, thrumming with energy. I squirmed around and was lapsed into pain, some parts of my neck and back were deep in pain.

"Well, you're awake then." Helen said in her moderate British accent. "Anything hurt?" She seemed a lot older right now, I closed my eyes.

"Back, neck." I responded as I tried to return to sleep. The healing spell hit me like a pillow to the back of the neck, when I tried to move again, it didn't hurt.

"Don't go back to sleep yet Jack, there has been a… development." That british accent kicked in on the word "Development."

"Of what sort? Have we won yet?"

"Not quite. Actually, it's of the bad sort."

"And don't I love bad news, what is it?"

"Well, when you were in the _hospital_" accent again on _hospital_ "And you took that knight's children to safety, he gave you a cross correct?"

"Still have it in my jerkin, what about it?"

"You were supposed to give it to his eldest son correct?" Oh shit. I hadn't done that… I didn't have time. I was saving his daughter from chastity just after we left the building. That wasn't what I meant to think.

"I never had a chance to give it to him, I was protecting his eldest daughter and they ran for the soldiers. I haven't seen them since."

"Well, because you chose to chase down Chastity and not give the boy the cross, the Hand of God has declared war on the M.E.R.L.I.N." Shit.

"Wait, what? Like killing us in the streets again?" The first time they had declared war on the M.E.R.L.I.N. they had thinned the wizard bloodline to only the ones strong enough to hide from avenging angels. That meant wizard kind was once reduced to about thirty wizards, our numbers hasn't fully recovered. If they did it again, we might be wiped off the earth.

"Yes Jack, like during the Inquisition. We're already mobilizing one hundred Sentinels against the Vatican, if we threaten them with destruction of their artifacts, maybe they will stop."

"Wait, how the hell can we move one hundred Sentinels on a whim to an unnecessary fight but can't get more than that to the end of the world!"

"Because if we teleport all our resources in at once, the barriers between our world and the demon planes will grow weaker, and all the resources we brought in will be wasted. That's why we've had to fly people in or get them in by boat and train."

"Oh. Do you know how I can locate Michael's kids?"

"I presume Michael is the knight you worked with, I have no idea. Check centers for lost children perhaps, but be quick about it, there is not much time."

"How much time are we talking about?"

"It's four o clock right now, darkness should fall within an hour, the attacks soon after that. Not to mention it's half an hour until you will be summoned for the attack on the Vatican."

"Do I have to fight in the Vatican? If you'll care to remember, the Hand of God thinks highly of me for breaking M.E.R.L.I.N. laws"

"Sorry to tell you this jack" British accent reaching critical levels "But they would love to kill you now." Damn, but to be expected.

"No time to lose than, teleport me to Grace Cathedral, they'd probably hide out there."

"Right away Jack." She stood from her seat and twirled about as she worked some portal magic. The portal opened, she kept one hand on the top of a shimmering disk of bent light. In the center of the disk was the sidewalk outside of Grace Cathedral on Nob Hill, San Francisco. She put her right hand on my chest before I entered the portal. "Don't get hurt out there Jack."

"No promises." I said before I stepped onto the sidewalk. There was a massive charger to my right, tethered to a parking meter. I heard the clinking of mail mixed with latin chatter. Looking around, there were wardens everywhere. One at the end of the block, four on the cathedral steps, four more at the door. A pair of female wardens came around the corner behind me, talking in Latin. Once I was fully on the sidewalk and the portal closed, swords were drawn all around me. Prayers and bible quotes sputtered through the air behind me as I sprinted for the cathedral doors. I hoped to god that the kids were in this one. The irony was a smack in the face. More rustling of steel as swords were drawn by more wardens, everything within a city block was converging on me. I slipped past the wardens on the cathedral steps, they were the classical armored knight type. They clanked around as I bounded up the steps five at a time on all fours. The women at the top of the steps were more modern in style, they drew guns. I jumped and landed on my back legs, technically my only legs. I pulled my magic shield up, the bullets were absorbed by a powerful shield of force. Two drew their divine forged swords, they could cut through any spell or ward. I moved to the right, towards a little meditation maze set into the concrete of the top of the steps. It was obvious I wasn't getting in through the doors, so I kept my momentum going and bounded off a planter box. From the box I landed on the smooth stones of the catherdral's front spires, I scuttled up these like a spider. Bullets ripped around me, I jumped from the tower's north facing side to a sloped roof on the north wall of the building.

I charged across the roof with catlike grace to get to a barred but open window on the other side, the Kevlar guarded wardens were turning the corner when I alchemized the bars on the window open. I jumped through it into space, falling slowly through an empty tunnel. Bricks zoomed past me, a brown rope remained consistent in my fall. My head ached like all hell; god was getting plenty pissed at me for invading a house of worship. I grabbed onto the rope to keep myself from falling to death, using magic was out of the question with this headache and growing numbness. Bells tolled as I slid down the rope ever so slowly to avoid landing on an alter. I ran out of some type of side chapel thing into the main section of the cathedral, where pews were assembled like soldiers at attention. A red cross facility was by the first row of pews to the center altar, my head felt like it was on fire. I couldn't feel my hands or feet, I was getting clumsy. I was suffering like this because I had magic; it was all of a sudden a burden I was quite willing to remove.

There was the little bastard, sitting with his siblings in the fourth row from the altar. They were praying, seeing that gave me a sinking feeling in my chest. Not because it meant anything, just the cfd again. The sinking feeling got worse as I knocked over a pew getting to the eleven year old boy. He looked like he was eleven, big red shirt, jeans. The armored wardens as well as the Kevlar/gun wardens stormed through the front of the cathedral, the whole orphan family turned around in unison. Bullets ripped by me with blinding speed, I jumped for cover behind the pew in front of the Wells. Ok, so I kind of fell and hit my head, same thing. I slipped four times trying to get up as the wardens clanked down the aisle between the pews. One of the gun bearing wardens took the far side, backed up by an armored one.

"Damn it." I muttered as I finally sat myself on the pew. The armored warden was only ten feet away. A shot ripped past me, these wardens couldn't shoot for shit. Beth floated into my head, for the first time ever I managed to push her out. Of course, the thoughts that blocked out the mourning were pain. "Hey uh, Daniel. No Abraham, Abraham. Your father wanted you to have this." I handed the boy the cross, it was made of platinum and was incinerating my bare hand as I touched it. The boy took it in both hands, the burning sensation left my hands in numbness.

"Oh my god, you're Jack Crest!" One of the daughters said, she was obviously running a little behind from the shock of gunfire. The two eldest of the children were the daughters, the other three children were all boys from about four to eleven. The warden with the sword brought his weapon up above his head; the warden behind him had drawn a shotgun.

"No time for autographs." I said as I scrambled around on the pew to the far side, where the other warden was. The shotgun fired and my lower left leg exploded in pain. _Shik shak_ the shotgun was ready again. I was like a fish out of water in the church, numb in all my moving parts, unable to use magic, maybe the kids would interpose themselves. The shotgun fired again from around the armored warden, it missed.

"No, stop!" A light female voice followed the sonic boom of the shotgun blast. The wardens seemed to ignore what I presumed to be the younger daughter. I remembered my gun in my jerkin, I drew that. Shooting someone in front of children is probably wrong, but now was not the time for mercy. I made a herculean effort to jump over the pew and fire my gun at the guy who shot me; a sword almost cleaved my skull in half in the process. _Blam blam blam blam blam_, recoil shocked my hand as I collapsed over the pew, more shots flew past me. Someone screamed _Per Dues_ and fell to the floor. There was probably a better way to do this. I swung my gun arm around towards the Asian workers of the Red Cross stand.

"Nobody move! I will kill her, than the children!" I roared in my loudest voice. The cathedral amplified my words tenfold, my voice was projected right onto everyone's thoughts. "I am not shitting you! I will blow her head all over the alter, than shoot up these kids if you don't let me go!" I was genuinely angry, that helped the dramatic effect of the yelling. I had gone through a lot of pain to get the cross to the kid, why the hell am I still being attacked. Fuck my head hurt like I had slept in stinging nettles.

"Jack Crest it is the divine will that you should be destroyed."  
"I gave the kid the cross, I never meant to take it in the first place!" Continue yelling. "I didn't have time between Chastity and passing out to look for Peter and give it to him, Jesus Christ." Everyone crossed themselves at his name with some muttering.

"It is not that the inheritance has been passed on so much as how you stained it." "How the hell did I stain it?" I had stopped yelling and entered an argument with the sword bearing warden, he had a south of the border accent.

"The cross of Michael the Common was stained by your handling it, it will never be the same." Oh come on.

"He gave it to me, he knew that I might hurt it's little sanctity thing, he didn't care. He just wanted it to get to his eldest son."

A high voice broke the standoff. "Please, don't kill him!" It was the little guy I had given the cross to. It was strange to see a child so young giving orders, a little unnerving. My head was still on fire, my hands were still detached from my body.

A new high voice chimed in, the eldest daughter, commanding in a sense. "Stop it. Both of you." She glared at me, then the wardens. I bit back a smartass comment. "Wardens, Jack was just doing his job, he never meant to take the cross. Jack, thank you for delivering the cross to Peter." Peter? Was that even a religious name?

"Can I leave now, cause my soul hurts like hell." Irony came in with the finishing blow.

"Thank you Jack." Peter said to me. In a swift, gentlemanly motion he shook my hand. I responded subconsciously. What the hell were the kids going to do with their life? They were orphaned now; maybe the eldest daughter was able to be their foster mother type thing. The righteous part of me said to take them under my wing, thank god I don't listen to it. I began to leave the cathedral, each step was an effort. The wardens eyed me uncomfortably, that reminded me.

"Oh yeah, wardens. M.E.R.L.I.N. forces are going to attack the Vatican City in a bit, you might want to stop that. Just a heads up."

"What? Who told you this?"

"Our most powerful eugenics bred magician-princess. I know, not even I saw that coming."

"Why?"

"Probably something about you declaring war on wizard kind."

The sword bearing warden gulped. "We will call off the war, and let your people return to your previous status if you call of the attack."

"Look man, I'm just a messenger, I don't actually belong to the M.E.R.L.I.N. I'll see what I can do to stop this. We all need it."

"Watch yourself Jack Crest. Bis zu der Art" My German registered that as a common goodbye. Without another word I relieved my aching skull and stepped outside of the church. It felt like hundreds of pounds were taken off my shoulders, feeling rushed back into my hands. I began to fly, the magic reconnected with my soul and I felt like my heart was hovering on a cushion of air. The sky felt excellent to my stressed body, I needed to get back to the M.E.R.L.I.N. on this… development. A portal opened thirty yards in front of me, I saw Helen through it.

As I entered it, I realized that I was playing right into M.E.R.L.I.N. hands. I didn't have to listen to them, I wasn't even being rewarded for my work. If I raised hell in working, they could just reassure everyone that I was not part of them. And if I accomplished their tasks, they had no need to reward me for it. I had to change this, but later.

"Jack, thank god your okay." Helen rushed me into her arms. She was still too friendly, I wasn't keen on being with her, but it would have to work. "Did you give the boy the cross?"

"Damn right I gave him the cross." I realized I was lying on her, on that same bed from before. I scrambled off her to preserve my shattered dignity in Beth's eyes as she sat against a pillow.

"Excellent, forces are ready to level the Vatican City within the hour." What?

"What? I thought we were making peace for once!" My voice was raising, I felt powerful roars contained deep within my chest.

"We are Jack; this is what is called justice. They attacked our magicians and quite a few warlocks, in return they must learn to fear our wrath. We won't run from divinity anymore jack, it holds little power in the twenty first century. The age of magic will begin with a glorious victory for the M.E.R.L.I.N. in San Francisco and a crippling blow to the Hand of God." Helen's British accent made her sound quite diabolical in her speaking.

"Not if I can help it. I'm in the top ten most powerful people on the planet at the moment, fourth if I'm not mistaken. That leaves the Champion of Righteousness, the Master of Energies and you in front of me. The master of Energies is powerful, but has no combat experience. The Champion of Righteousness could kill you or me with ease, and I've already proven myself to be your weakness. That makes me the strongest magician on the planet, and I'll outlive the Champion of Righteousness with ease. Do you want to cross me Helen?" I said as I turned away from her. I could not let this fighting go on, we had bigger things to deal with than who's saving the world. The focus should be on if the world is going to be saved or not.

"I'd like to see you try Jack Crest." Katy invoked my name with her accent; she should have been a James Bond villain. Without a word I left the room, she had a challenging look on her face, but her energies were distressed and scared. I wandered through a maze of corridors and hallways in what seemed like a giant hotel. I followed a trail of energy to find a large assembly room much like where we had prepared for last night's fighting. This room however had six score Sentinels ready for combat languishing around. I heard footsteps far behind me, Helen's.

Without thinking, I began to yell. "Hey bitches, it's Jack Crest." I changed my voice a bit. "What Jack Crest? He doesn't even work here!" Back to original voice. "That's right bitch, but I can still kick your ass and tell you what to do. Now if anyone goes through those portals, I will kill them." I changed to my serious voice. "The M.E.R.L.I.N. is not at war with the Hand of God, I made sure of that. Not only did I get them to stop killing us in the streets, but redouble their efforts to protect San Francisco." Ok, so I didn't really do that. No one said I needed to be completely truthful. "As far as I can tell this is just a publicity stunt at a really bad time. In a few hours we will have another attack, but in a few hours all of you will still be in the Vatican City, trying to restart a war…

"He doesn't even belong to us, why do you trust the man that was once the most highly regarded wizard in the eyes of the Hand of God? Oh and by the way." A gun clicked as the words ended, I turned around and brought up my shield magic. That guy I had gotten fired, Helen's father, was standing behind me. Helen was in a magical vice grip, arms straight at her sides, mouth unmoving. That would incapacitate any fine grade magic that would be required to get oneself out of such traps. And the gun was pointed at her head. "Say goodbye to your top bitch." He waited for a dramatic moment as spells were flung across the room, bouncing around me and into shields and wards he had put on himself. "You'll only hurt her." He mocked as the spells grazed off Helen's body wards.

"It's fucked up that you'd let yourself be bred like a horse, but the real perversion of morality is how your threatening to kill your daughter. You even said you loved her, but now you'd kill her."

He interrupted my attempt at talking him out of it. "Shut up! I'm here to make you an offer! Return me to my position and kill Jack Crest for starting this war, or lose the greatest chance you have against the demons." I got the feeling that wasn't directed at me. The Sentinels in the room began to murmur amongst themselves. This could be colossally bad for me.

"As leader of the druidic society, I stand against killing the incarnation of the Beast Jack Crest." One elderly woman piped up, strong and true like a songbird. A new voice followed the same path.

"I am Chief Alchemist Ivan Servoski, I stand against killing alchemist Jack Crest."

"Evoker Monsua thinks that we should trade the lesser for the greater and kill Jack Crest."

"Necromancer Gai Pon Sha believes we should not kill Jack Crest."

"Illusionist Albert of Cornwall knows that it is within our best interest to kill Jack Crest."

"As Head Philomancer Catelyn Hilton, I think we should kill Jack."

It all rested on the chiefs of the Conjurors and Elemental Societies.

"Lead Conjuror Samuel Corivara votes for killing Jack Crest."

"Master of Elements Maru of the Abyss votes to kill Jack Crest." Well then.

Gregory spoke firmly, with a smile on his face. "I suppose the M.E.R.L.I.N. is worth saving." He turned his gun towards me and I had my chance. It would take him three seconds to bring it back to Helen, and she needed to be saved for her amazing magic powers. I ducked and prepared to sting him with my viper palm magic.

The gun cracked and a finger of force pushed me back by the gut, I resisted it and took another of three steps toward him. The gun made another deafening boom as I took another step, this shot was in the gut but higher up. I took a lightning quick third step as he brought the gun towards my head, hands out. I stabbed his wrist with index and middle fingers formed like fangs. I hit him with my right and left hand on the gun carrying wrist, then moved for the body. Before the gun could splatter my brains over the walls, I had smashed into Gregory and Helen like a charging bear. I guttural sound escaped my throat in pain as we all hit the floor, I tried to take a bite out of Gregory but was held back by the shields. Some hand of force pulled me away from the two of them, the situation was probably secured. I hadn't kept track of what poisons I hit him with, but that many stings was probably enough to kill him.

"Jack!" Helen screeched into my ear. She had no idea how loud that was to a man with sensitive hearing, she hammered my pain blinded ribs with her healing spell, the pain faded into tightness of the muscles.

"Thank you Jack Crest, for defending Project Helen, if you wish, you may leave." One of the voices that had spoken against me coolly stated. I remembered that voice; it was the philomancist from when I figured out Gregory was Helen's father. Now I had a name to the American born face, blue eyes and brown hair on pale skin with a calm presence.

"First things first, are you still going to attack the Vatican?" Helen brushed the numb, dying Gregory Lafayette-Ruskarizon off her and got up. She stood next to me, still uncomfortably close.

"We will have to vote on that Jack, you may attend if you wish." I considered my options. Politics on one hand, but at least this was an important issue; on the other hand I could go back to San Francisco and try to get some rest before the fighting tonight. I could get rest in here, I looked around and finally noticed what everyone was sitting on. Big, overstuffed, reclining leather chairs. How in god's name did I not notice those oases of comfort? I made a beeline for an open one and laid back, let the good times roll.

"Let the floor be open to arguments on the topic of war with the Hand of God, including the attack on the Vatican City." Helen said to the powerful and honored Sentinels of the room, including the heads of the magical societies of the M.E.R.L.I.N. The head of the Necromancy Society raised his hand and sent out a small magic pulse through the room to get attention.

"Gai Pon Sha, the floor is yours." Gai Pon Sha was an Asian man in a kimono with swords tied into it. He looked like an unarmored samurai, he probably was. It was strange for a necromancer to not smell like dead meat, but I was sitting only four feet from him and smelled nothing.

"I stand against war with the Hand of God because outright violence is easy enough to come by in our current state. What we should instead do is be the more righteous force and ignore their petty assaults and focus all our resources on the demon invasion in San Francisco. In the eyes of the public, we will be the more mature ones in this. If they continue to attack us, we should fight back, with lethal force at first strike, but I believe that they will not attack due to the harm it would cause their reputation. Before I concede the floor, I implore you to imagine yourself as the public in this situation. The M.E.R.L.I.N. made a mistake, apologized and made everything better despite the retribution from the Hand of God. We will forgive those who killed us on sight so we can focus on problems that effect more than us. I concede the floor." Gai Pon Sha was good at this; thank god he was on the right side. How was he a necromancer?

Albert of Cornwall raised a very british hand. To begin the tea party, Helen's british accent chimed "The floor goes to Albert of Cornwall, master of illusion."

"My respects to Gai Pon Sha, but I will have to disagree. We lost many strong magicians during the Spanish Inquisition, and this is essentially a revised version of it." I couldn't help but remember the Spanish Inquisition Monty Python skit. "If we let them get away with killing civilian magicians all of the globe like this, we will soon find them banging through our doors and killing us in our homes yet again. And what are we to do about it! We are to allow this slaughter? My regards again to Gai Pon Sha, but it is their job to turn the other cheek, not ours." The British accent put the nail in the coffin, combined with dramatics even I couldn't match. "I concede the floor, but we must attack soon."

After the same hand raising and magic pulse sending, Catelyn Hilton was back.

"Thank you Albert, the floor goes to Catelyn Hilton."

"Excuse me for my bluntness, but we have bigger fish to fry than a war with the Hand of God. We can kill them all later if we so choose, but we won't have a later if we don't stop the demons now! I'm all for justice, may we kill them in the streets in returning the favor, but we have to focus on the here and now. The demons are on the run, tonight the barrier between worlds is stronger than ever, we have a chance. If we turn our resources away, they will destroy all our progress. If all goes well, the conjurors will have gotten Solomon in our world and vulnerable by tomorrow night. Stay the course Sentinels, and we'll live long enough to level the Vatican City if we want." She had none of the theatrics or composure that Albert had, but thankfully her point was well received by all. She conceded the floor and no one took it.

"It seems that Catelyn Hilton has finished our debate, does anyone else have any points to make or refute?" Helen was again in charge of the situation. No one made a move. "Then we will not attack the Hand of God until our world is secured and the demons are driven back. Can we all agree on this?" Helen sent out a spell to everyone but me, it checked if they agreed or not. Silently people cast their vote and in a moment, Helen continued. "Then we have settled this, if you are scheduled to enter the city tonight, please get to the portals with haste." I followed a long line of Sentinels; Helen caught up to me and stuck to my hip. I was growing tired of her antics, but at least she wasn't begging me to fuck her.

"Well, I'm glad we aren't going to kill them" She chirped again, heavy on her accent.

"Yet."

"Well, the hatred will probably be lost in the rejoicing once we fend off the demons."

"Don't get arrogant, pride is the armor of dead soldiers."

"Sure thing dad." She said as we stepped over Gregory. I felt a headache coming on, it was the distinct kind from CFD. All of a sudden divine power broke into my mind and set my eyes on fire, even here in the interdimensional M.E.R.L.I.N. headquarters. _We've been attacked! _The beast's mind and mine separated in the pain, I tried to keep walking.

"Jack, you should know something. One knight is still attacking wizards in San Francisco. His name is Horace Kingsly, and he has heaven crafted armor that protects him from magic. We figured that you would be the wizard to take him down. The armor will protect him from the bullets of soldiers simply due to the fact that it is plate with few greaves. Use the strength of the Beast to kill him, he is corrupted. The mania he is experiencing isn't fervor, it is fanaticism. He must be stopped; you're the best candidate for stopping him. Good luck." As suddenly as the pain broke into my skull and whispered the thoughts into my mind, it left.

"Jack, are you alright?" Helen was looking down at me, I realized I had fallen to a knee.

"I'm fine; let me know if you see anyone running from a knight tonight, I've got a date."

"I will keep on the alert." She responded. In moments we stepped through portals into San Francisco and stepped into the air again, facing Alcatraz. Big troop carrying ships were lined up on Fisherman's wharf, I was standing around with a team of Sentinels, we dispersed. Troops from many nations loaded quickly and efficiently into the transport ships. The hustle and bustle mixed with clean cut efficiency was becoming second nature; I looked for Wyatt in the corner of my eye. I saw him staring out towards Alcatraz, channeling a vision spell. He wore his gray hair in matted braids, trinkets of protection woven into them. I noted a Kevlar vest and thin layer of chain mail under dragon scale robes. Wyatt's staff was a spear, runes etched into its entire shaft and blade, a warrior-magician's weapon.

"Hello Jack, are you prepared for tonight?"

"Not at all, anyone special in the prison?"

"Quite so Jack, a powerful sorceress demon, she is within the cell blocks. Her name is Passion; she has a personal mark on you." That meant that she had dealt with me before, but I'd never fought any demon named Passion in my life.

"What do you mean?" Tentacles within my gut pulled my heart low; I already knew what he meant.

He shook his head and looked down. "I mean that she might have killed Beth." That was what I had feared. _It is time for vengeance on that which killed our mate._ I had to agree with it, even if Passion didn't kill Beth, she needed to go down. And if she did manipulate events to kill her, than this just got personal.

"Hey Jack, hows things?" Jimmy came up to us in his Kevlar and extra clips.

"Pretty good for the circumstances. You ready?"

"You know it. Time to see who the better fighter is eh?"

"Time to see, not like we don't already know." We both chuckled, machismo was our thing. "You need a ride?" I offered to fly him over the bay to Alcatraz Island, site of the famous prison that once held "Machine Gun" Kelly and Al Capone.

"Gotta take the boat man, see you there. Don't start anything without me."

"Got it Jimmy." It took a moment for the boats to get moving once the wharf had been sucked dry of soldiers.

"That's our queue jack, let's give them a beachhead." The Sentinels all flew out towards the island faster than the boats could muster on the choppy waters of San Francisco bay. I could see demons leaping and rushing about the rock, it wouldn't be easy tonight. It was kind of ironic, creatures of evil overrunning one of the most historic places of incarceration. The prison island had a single dock like thing for the ships to land in, General O' Doram had doubtlessly prepared for that. Demons had overrun the place, they seemed to leap and roar from every possible surface, rooftops, water towers, cell windows. I noted a lot of Ex-Liches on the field, they would probably be extras from the demons trying to weaken the planar barrier. I suppose the strategy of the demons was to use this as a foothold to provide logistical support to other attacks, perhaps it was all just a trap for something much more diabolical. I mean, what can you expect?

On Alcatraz, there is a single large building of two stories on the height of the rock island. This is the main cell block; I expected that to be a major source of conflict, especially given that Passion was there. That was such a lame name for a demon, but an excellent name for a fragrance line. I saw a Gorecrow leaving the island, I zoomed up to it and crunched it's neck with my bear strength. Sentinels landed on the wharf of Alcatraz, war magic burst the fight to life. Demons were crushed with force and scorched with fire, a few benevolent spirits and outsiders were summoned by the conjurors to help fight the demons. The fighting was fierce moments into the battle when I landed, already were the bodies of four wardens sprawled over the wharf. I landed among a small grove of trees near the wharf, clawing my way through an Ex Lich preparing a massive conflagration of hellfire. I saw Wyatt shake his hands, vibrating them parallel to the ground. Demons in front of him were taken down by small punctures all over their bodies, it was apparent Wyatt was making some type of darts with his spell. A Fel Imp leapt for him from the trees, a large one. I whipped out my Desert Eagle and put it down before it could land on him before whipping around and firing eight times into the body of a sneaky Fel Soldier. We could hold the wharf long enough for the armies to show up and push forward on the island, up a single dirt path that turned once on itself to get up the rock and to the main cell block.

Moments after the ships arrived, the demons poured from the cell block, bounding and charging, jumping from above us on the rocks with claws ready to kill. I jumped to meet them with my staff in front of me, roaring "Pyromenthil!" Fire leapt from my hand and sent burning demons falling to the ground. I landed on the upper section of the path, facing three rushing Fel Soldiers. I had to dodge low and slide to avoid being hacked in half by their powerful axes, then the front one charged. I tried to jump at his neck, but I was off balance from the earlier attacks. I was stabbed in the chest by it's shoulder spikes, as well as pressed down the rock. All of a sudden the head of the Fel Soldier was turned to blood on the rocks, Jimmy's gun the cause. The troops were rushing up towards the hill, guns blazing. Wyatt was right behind Jimmy, who held down the trigger until the clip ran empty on the other two Fel Soldiers.

"Score three Jimmy, zero Jack." Jimmy smiled as I healed my chest wound. I smiled but didn't respond, I got onto all fours and bounded up the hill as soldiers rushed around me. We got onto the area in front of the cell block, where a lighthouse stood. On top of the light house were the spirits of dead Liches, who became demons after death. Fire rained from their hands onto the troops as Wyatt pulled up a massive shield, the burning just inches from my face. When the fires died down, Wyatt made an audible exhalation and let the shield down, the soldiers went to work. Fire and bolts of shadow magic still rained down on us, but the troops spread out and fired back, most of them shooting for the demons pouring from the cell block. I bounded from the pack of troops and onto the walls of the lighthouse, I scaled them with ease. With flight magic I flipped onto the lighthouse balcony where the liches were, they never expected me. I clawed two down, sending their rotting bodies flying to the ground. Then I tackled one as I made my way around the lighthouse, crushing it's spine and tearing at it's side with my jaws. The old blood tasted like hatred as the ex lich died in my jaws. I looked up from my kill to see the last lich preparing to burn me with fire from his hands, I had no time to move.

Searing fire sent me flying against the steel railing of the lighthouse, the pain was blinding. I hurt my back on the steel railing, a bar of pain in my back. I was immobilized and shocked, the pain was too much. The lich was preparing to burn me again, more fire on his hands. Through the pain I got up and hid around the other side of the lighthouse as fire tailed me. I slipped around the lich as it followed me and got behind him. With one quick motion, I drew my sword-wand and cut its head from its shoulders, I savored the moment.

_Let's get inside Jack, time to get going _Wyatt whispered into my head. _On my way_ I jumped from the white house and landed on all four haunches, bones and muscles shaped like a quadruped. I charged behind the line of soldiers trying to hold off the advancing demons from the other side of the building to Wyatt, Jimmy and a team of English troops were holding a space by the door. I alchemized the door open and pushed inside with my shoulder without a word. It was horribly dark inside without electric lights or light from the outside streaming in, all I could see was due to my starlight vision given by the beast. The cells were empty, the only figure in the room was a tall thin womanly shape at the end of the long hallway. She must have been seventy five yards away, we approached slowly and wordlessly.

"I've been waiting for you Jack. It's good to see you brought friends. Don't jump to violence now Jack, I've got a few tricks to warn you about." I wanted to bound up to her and tear her to pieces, but my better judgment kept me still. "First, the room is trapped to my heart's content, every third row of tiles has a land mine under the middle tile. I took note of the cement tiles in the floor, noting the third row. "Yes, make sure you know what I'm talking about. Now, the light fixtures will fall and eject spikes with a poison covering that will cause lack of motor control if you flip the light switches to your left."

"Why are you telling us this!" Jimmy yelled from behind me, I agreed but had the sense not to stop a good thing.

"Don't interrupt, it's very rude." Passion continued as if nothing had happened. "In the bed of each cell is an adder, so be careful about that. Oh, that back door is electrified so that you can only enter and exit through the other side. Two hundred volts, enough to kill you." She made no motions as she spoke, she just stood there talking. "Um, anything else… the windows are made to only shatter inwards, so you can't break them." She had a long pause as all of us stood there, the troops looking down the barrels of their weapons. The big metal door closed and locked behind us. "Oh right, I never travel alone. Kill them." She turned and chuckled as every cell door suddenly opened, out of them demons came flying towards us. They looked like beefed up imps, standing four feet tall with exceptional claws and fire leaking from them to drip towards the floor. Every cell contained two or three, and all at the same time they jumped for us.

They moved like lightning, screeching through the air as machine guns blazed behind us. One of the five British troops tried to open the door we came through; there was a scream and the sound of an electric discharge. I took my staff in hand and did what I always did. "Pyromenthil!" I yelled as I stepped forward, incinerating the nearest six imps. "Time to Zeus this shit up!" I yelled as lightning began to crackle in my hands. I let some of it go and took down three super imps; I needed something to call these. I suddenly remembered to be careful where I stepped, I was on the third row from the door and almost on the middle of three tiles in the row. I side stepped away from it, but got a gash form a nearby imp in the process; there were just so many of them! I whipped around and let out a lightning pulse, it jumped from imp to imp, making them scream, then explode in hot blood. The blood was actually so hot it hurt, like boiling water.

"You crazy bitch, face me like you know how to fight!" I yelled as I clawed down a few imps in rapid succession, whipping and dodging around to avoid getting killed. Jimmy mowed down the ones far away, I saw Wyatt take out a swath with a left hook enhanced by magic. The soldiers were going down quick, I glanced at one's headless corpse on the ground. I felt a surge of strength in me as an imp took me bodily and threw me into the air, it pursued me. I had it now; I felt strength, magic and rage thundering in my veins. I let out my loudest yell, it was ear splitting in the closed space of the cell block

"Pyromenthil!" I roared, fire burst out from in front of me. This was more than normal. This was a wave of sheer destructive power, burning the demons all around me. Force, heat and fire all collided into the demons, I cut a swath from the second level of cells across thirty yards and down half the hallway, destroying the flying, scurrying imps of Passion's command. It felt great, like power never before used finally coming to surface. I landed on the second level of the building, on the walkway. It was there that I looked down at three dead soldiers, Wyatt, Jimmy and a whole bunch of scorched earth and realized what I had done. The force from my fire had set off the landmines, which are what had made the explosion so big with such little effort. Blood covered the scorched cement and walls; I had turned Passion's traps against her. A few demons that were quite far back towards passions still scuttled towards us, Jimmy was reloading his gun desperately, the remaining soldiers were frozen in place. The kept rushing towards our group, Wyatt casually walked to the light switch. He waited for a second, watching the imps charge for us like we stood no chance, before he flipped the switch. The lights came crashing from their place hanging from the roof onto the floor, spikes extended from their edges. The imps were cut up something bad before they scuttled along the floor and died.

"Got you now bitch, what's that secret you had to tell me?" I spoke down the cell block to her.

"Come here and I'll tell you." I walked down the middle of the cell block's scorched and broken cement, right where her mines had been. It was good to rub her defeat in her face, maybe it would take her down a notch. I crossed the cell block and noticed that somewhere along the line I had put on myself healing chain mail, which was probably a smart idea. It had by now healed the burns on my legs and arms from the ex-lich's fiery assault. I got up to five yards from her, she beckoned closer, I stayed.

"You know, I always thought demons would be honored to be named after sins, like gluttony or in your case, I'd go with lust. Taking a name that sounds like a perfume doesn't look good on your intimidation list, it's just not… evil."

"Who are you to say that passion is not a sin? That loving another with such devotion and adoration is not evil? You forsake every soul in your life for that one that is perfect, even though you know she is only human. In another context, passion is a sin by letting your heart rule your logic, you let yourself swing from great extremes of emotion." She paused and made a quiet chuckle. "How ironic that those seem to describe you quite well, you and me would make a pretty good team."

It did sound like me, but passion is a righteous state, not one of evil. "If passion is a sin, than paint me with baby blood and call me anti christ. Tell me the damn secret."

"Are you sure you want to know?"

"Sure why not." She beckoned closer; I took a single step after checking that I wouldn't blow myself up in the process. All of a sudden, my muscles locked up, I went rigid and could not move, she had a spell on me. Not in that way either, an actual magic one. All I could do was stare forwards at her beautiful figure. She looked a lot like Beth, but with skin tinged red and occasional scales in it. Her fingers ended in long, razor sharp claws dripping in blood. She wore torn robes, they looked just like the robes Beth would wear. She was mocking me, I hated it. Her eyes burned in place, her shadow danced around her with black magic power.

"Well, in case you haven't guessed by now, I killed Beth." Passion smiled. Hatred roared within me, rage soared through my veins. I didn't care if she was lying or not, I needed to kill her right now. To spill her blood for Beth would be an honor I could not deny myself. She chuckled again, I hardly noticed it. "Do you really think that you would make a simple mistake in such a time of stress? You put everything you had into that shield spell, it would have held up to anything if I hadn't intervened. I made a hole in the shield, that's where she was shot. And to think you took it on yourself, how cute." I wanted to scream and roar but my mouth was clamped shut, my body felt like it was cast in stone. "Well Jack, what do you think is the best part about her being gone? The depression fogging your mind? The guilt that you beat yourself with? I think it's the fact that your single again. You should have never let passion rule you Jack, now it will be your fall, I've got you all worked up. You've surely forgotten all about the traps, maybe even my name. All you know is that I killed Beth by exploiting your rage and love. And that's all you will need to know in your final moments, that your passion has killed you. That I killed Beth." The spell went down quickly, I had nothing to say.

"Pyromenthil!" I roared as soon as I could, blasting fire all around Passion, she needed to die! I let my rage take control of me; I sent fire bursting from my hands with reckless abandon. If I killed myself killing her, my death would not be in vain. Passion had to die now! "Time to die bitch!" I roared through the cell block as Passion leapt away from my fangs. I charged forward at her, jumping clear over a tile with a landmine beneath it. I tried to slash at her chest and neck with my claws; she eluded me and jumped into a cell. With magic she closed the cell door, I leapt at it. Shocks of electricity blinked through me, I rolled backwards in pain. I had completely forgotten about the electrified cell doors, Passion chuckled her little smirk of a laugh. "Alchemesis!" I roared in fury as I took apart the cell bars, I captured the electricity and bent the metal far away, she was trapped.

With a punch to the air she sent me flying across the cell block from within the cell, I crashed onto the metal walkway of the second level of cells. My whole body cried out in pain as I got to my feet lightning quick, before I knew it lightning was coursing around me. I dodged with snakelike speed enhanced by the energy of the electricity I had just commandeered, but still bolts ran across my arms. I was going numb with pain; I only saw Passion standing in the middle of the floor on the first story channeling the maelstrom of lightning around me. I leapt from the metal balcony with pouncing strength; I would tackle and mangle her. She deftly dodged my pounce as I landed on the middle tile square, I realized my mistake. I wasn't sure if this was the third row or not, but there was a click after my claws hit the floor, I didn't need reassuring in what that was. I jumped up from my pounce and activated my wordless flight spell before the explosion beneath me killed me. Fire licked my legs in a burning sensation, even my toughened up jeans wouldn't protect me from that. I lost feeling in my back claws on my feet as I soared back up to the second level of the cell block. I ran across that with pain screaming out of my ankles before I dropped back down, this time not on the middle tile.

Passion had to whip around to face me, I managed to swipe her across her left shoulder. She cast some spell that teleported her away, I switched back to a more humanoid shape. I took out my staff and let fly the silver stars that swirl around it, Passion caught them on a shield spell. Damn it! I charged across the cell block again, shifting back to a more bestial form. Passion let fireballs fly from her hands, I dodged each of them for a few seconds before she got me. One exploded onto my shoulder, it burned like every hell. I was sure my shoulder was broken, but still I bounded on to attack her. She leapt to the walkway above the bottom floor before I could get to her, but I had a moment of genius. "Alchemesis!" I roared in a guttural sound before slamming my hands into the wall. I brought the walkway she stood on away from the wall and slammed it onto the ground, all twenty yards of metal. It was a difficult effect to do with alchemy, but it caught her off balance on a third tile. In a moment fire bust out from under her, pressing her against the cement between cells. Blood and guts smeered the iron bars and the concrete of the historic jail, the haze of smoke hung in the air. it took me a long moment to realize I had made it.

"Vengeance is ours Beth!" I yelled to the world. I had her, everything would be okay. Even if I fought like a monster, I could at least avenge Beth with it. I got up behind a dying Passion and tore out her throat with my claws, the blood hot enough to scald my tongue. I savored the heat and metallic taste as I killed Passion in my fury, I felt unstoppable. I had vengeance, I killed her! I felt pride and love run in me, the taste of blood was never as sweet as on that day.

I felt myself begin to pass out as the adrenaline left my bloodstream, I was okay with that. Helen was above me as I closed my eyes, hopping that I would wake up again, Wyatt was saying something I would never hear. I was being taken to the M.E.R.L.I.N. interdimensional headquarters, or that was what I assumed. Helen would fix me up; I would get back out there. Maybe I would unmask a conspiracy or something.

I remember dreaming of Beth.

"Wake up Jack, it's business time." It was Helen, my predictions were correct.

"This is getting awfully routine." I got out of the same bed and put on my Jerkin and torn jeans, I had no other clothing to wear.

"We are nearing the end Jack, thanks to your valor and the combined efforts of nations, wizards and wardens, we are nearing the end." On with the self healing shark mail, it was getting beat up bad even with the repairs Helen made to it.

"Is it a good ending or a bad one?" I murmered as I scalded my tongue with a cup of tea by the bedside, it must have been Helen's.

"That is yet to be known. The demons are in China town, they have vampires with them."

"Vampires? I've already beaten them many times, vampires are nothing to fear."

"They are always something to fear, all it takes is one second with your guard down for someone to kill you."

"I think I told you that just a few days ago, and you're already using it against me?" I opened the door and entered the hall towards the room with the portals in it.

"I shouldn't have to teach a man my senior and superior in combat the basics, but you've forgotten them. Did killing Passion make you even more arrogant than usual?"

I pushed the door open to the portal room, where a group of Sentinels were going through to a shimmering image of the main street of China town. Screams filled the air, accompanied by their companion attack yells. Though we were in the main street of Chinatown, it wasn't near as crowded as it normally was. Demons jumped from rooftop to rooftop, nightwalkers strode through allies and banshees screamed. Fel Imps crowded around my feet, someone used a gust of wind to blow them away, crushing them against a nearby wall. I got right into action and bounded away from the portal, there would surely be attacks to it by the demons. Through the streets I jumped, I got up to a third story building with flight magic and a good pounce. On the rooftops was a Fel Soldier, he smashed my hands with a mace before I triggered my earth want and sent roofing slates at him. The slates smashed into the exposed parts of his armor, including that neck opening. But before the creature hit the ground, I was yanked back.

Cold fingers held my hair; another set of them wrestled my staff from my stunned fingers. I knew immediately what was going on; I had feared it since I came back to town. A whisper of wind made by breath on fangs confirmed that I was being attacked by vampires, probably interested in vengeance for what I had done to them at the Embassy. I tried to duck low, to get under these hands and be free to face them, but undead strength held me in place.

"Welcome back Jack, we've been expecting you." I had an idea. I had a prepared magic spell in the back of my mind that I used when I was being attacked by magical predators; it made a repelling ward of force over my skin for a few seconds. I could use it to send anything with its claws on me thirty yards away. With a breath of magic, I uttered it and made myself free from the cold dead fingers of the unseen vampires.

In a moment I bounded with all possible speed across the rooftop, away from the vampires. If I could get them at a distance I could hit them with magic, footsteps pattered across the gravel behind me. I could always run and hide, these guys had the drop on me, if I could take cover and wait until I could hunt them; everything would be okay. I jumped onto a fire escape and from there through a window and into a house. I stumbled through foreign corridors and hallways, screams of children echoed after me in partnership to the vampire rasps. I jumped out another window to the air above the street from all fours, from there I broke through an awning and into a fish shop. The aquariums that once contained captured fish and frogs for food had been long broken, but the floor was still wet. My bones were in a quadruped's shape, so I could get to the back of the store quickly from the door that faced the sidewalk. The vampire steps were getting quitter, I put on my invisibility spell. It took quite an effort to focus and cast the spell, the stress was getting to me. I failed twice before my sounds were muffled and I was camouflaged perfectly to fit the room I was in.

Looking around I saw that I was in a room filled with plastic bags and empty, unbroken aquariums. I hid behind a cabinet, footsteps entered the room. A vampire, blood dripping from its mouth with claws extended from its hands. Black magic swirled over its milky skin, I didn't breath. The vampire took a step towards me, than another. If I needed to, I would jump and claw at its neck. The vampire was looking right at me, smiling. I still didn't breath; I couldn't risk fighting well fed vampires. It took another step towards me, it must have seen me.

All of a sudden it turned on its heels and left the storeroom. I took a deep, muffled breath as every muscle in my body shook with relief. I wasted no time leaving the room, as stealthily as I could. I didn't fully close the door as I ran for my life to the street I had entered from, hopefully the vampires left out the back door. In the street, I figured I was safe. There weren't too many demons, I could find a great place to hide or even alchemize one.

"Jack Crest, in the name of that which is righteous I am to destroy you. May the lord have mercy on your soul." Fuck, that was sure to be that knight on a rampage. I turned to my right where the words had come from and saw that it was indeed. Standing in front of a set of burning buildings was Sir Horace Kingsly. The decorations with mandarin characters written on their red parchment burned brightly enough to reflect on his metal armor. And what armor it was! The breastplate was made of metal with a light golden sheen, as if someone had melted steel and gold together. It seemed to be a light of its own, without the reflections of burning buildings behind him it glowed. In its surface I could see myself, even though I was twenty yards away. His shoulder pieces were smoothly crafted, edged with gold, they made him look a whole foot taller. His leg plates were made from chainmail, when he took steps they rang like tiny bells. All across the greaves and links were little inscriptions of what I assumed were prayers and blessings. He put his helmet on and pulled down the visor, I couldn't see his eyes but only the masterpiece that protected that bastard skull. Upon the edges of the helmet were the same gold trim and inscriptions, but it's surface was made of platinum. I didn't understand how he could hold his head up in such heavy and strong metal, but he managed fine. He was actually decently mobile due to greaves made from what looked like demon skin. Demon skin leather, now that is badass. A bloodstained white cape flipped around behind him. When he drew his sword, my eyes screamed in agony, I realized what it was meant to do. The weapon had been charged with divine power to hurt CFD wizards.

I stepped away from the blinding white light, I fell on my ass. The bright shaft of light was brought over the helmet. I had to fight back; it just hurt my head to exist. The shaft of light came screaming down; I brought up my shield spell. I pushed my entire will into the spell, the sword cut through it like it didn't exist. I felt my belly be seared in half by the blinding white light, how had it cut through my shield? The sword left my chest bleeding, the knight behind it brought it above me. He was going to kill me right now. I couldn't let that happen. I rolled out of the way of the executing stab. My stomach hurt like all hell, I blasted the knight with my fire spell.

"Pyromenthil!" I yelled at the knight as fire burst out of my palm in the same controlled explosion. The knight was only a few feet away; it should melt him to a mark on the pavement. When the blinding white light of his sword came through the fire and almost beheaded me, needless to say I was shocked. His armor must be resistant to magic, just as his sword had been, Jesus I was stupid. When a lunge came at me, I was ready for it. I jumped over the weapon with claws extended. I could still fight this guy, the divine message was correct. I clawed at his greaves and neck, only to hurt myself on the metal. I was attacking light and fast, like a tiger or lion. My long claws didn't get through to his flesh, they only scratched at his armor. I had to whip myself to the ground to avoid a new slice from the knight as he stepped back. I made my attack pounce on his chest, knocking him to the ground. I hoped the sword dropped from his hand, I never had time to check. I slashed my claws at his neck, heavier attacks. I ripped out one of the lower pieces of his helmet in this attack, but he rolled and kicked me off his armor. He didn't have his sword for a moment, so I leapt again.

He deftly moved to dodge my attack and retrieve his weapon; I had to turn like a snake to be ready for him again. I had to change my tactics, hit harder. These light strikes could be fast, but it wouldn't matter how fast I was if I never succeeded. I waited for him to make an overhead swing to deftly dodge to behind him before I hit him. I slammed into the small of his back with the strength of an overweight bear, sending him sprawling to the ground. In his armor, he must have hit it hard. He was beginning to get up when I smashed him hard with my changed fist. My claws had become a heavy paw with smaller points on it. I slammed the back of his neck with these new bear claws, I heard a snap in the metal. He fell back to the ground, I smacked him again. Three times did I hit him before he was bleeding out the back of his neck, dead. My stomach was hurting like shit still, I rolled onto the round as humanoid figures blocked out my view.

I must have blacked out at some point of the humanoids carrying me somewhere, because I woke up slow and sore. I jerked to alertness as pain crashed into my gut, right along the cut from the knight's sword. I was in a chair, the bottom of it had been cut out, and my arms were restrained with magic. Immediately I began to form an idea of where I was. The room was underground, I could tell that from the smell and coldness. There was a stairwell behind me, which probably lead aboveground. There were figures ahead of me, in the darkness. They were the humanoids from earlier, when I focused on my senses and magic I could tell they were vampires. I was the only one in the room, the chair was the only furniture. This must be a bomb shelter or something, currently servicing as my torture chamber.

"It's good to see your awake Jack, you've had a rough night."

"Let me go." I didn't really think before saying that.

A sarcastic tone from another voice came through "Oh, okay. Sorry to detain you Mr. Crest, we'll just do whatever you say from here on out."

"That's right bitch." I responded. "Let's be clear on who's the smartass here."

"Eric bite him, it's time." A female voice commanded. I struggled against my bonds so Eric couldn't get to me, it didn't work.

"Don't do it Eric, you're smart enough not to piss me off." Footsteps came slowly towards me through the darkness. Before I knew it a blinding pain was in my neck, I was having a hard time understanding what was going on. I was being bitten by a vampire, after being captured by them. All during the end of the world, after I killed a fanatic knight. All the while, city council was deciding if mortal authorities were going to kill me or not, probably yes to killing me. And Beth still hated me in her grave, with reason. She hated me because I was embracing my inner demons, my black magic taint and Beast. I had gotten the beast when I went vigilante with some newly made friends against Vampires hiding in the San Francisco Embassy to the Supernatural. Before that, I was just a magician living in the twenty first century just after the release of magic to humankind. And before that I was like almost every other magician, except I was on the other side of the war. Not one year earlier I had been fighting for the Blood Rebels in the Blood Rebellion to make only pureblood wizards members of the M.E.R.L.I.N. There they had given me the taint of Black Magic in giving me a tattoo that would extend my life by some six hundred years. And before that I was just a regular teenage magician living in Alaska. My god, and now I was a vampire.

Pain dragged me from the comfort of the reverie just moments into it, the vampire was sucking my blood. I felt my face changing, fangs growing in place of my teeth, my black magic flared up in my soul. The pain was too great to handle, I screamed in agony as another vampire sucked at the other side of my neck, her face female. I didn't know if the vampire instincts and demon would overpower the Beast; possibly drive it forever from my soul. The beast and I became separated; I didn't will that to happen. I must be losing it, somehow that made me cry. The pain yet again.

_Don't fall Jack! We must show these whelps how it is done! All undeath means is less day hunting and more blood than flesh! Feel the instinct to hunt once more!_ _Do not forget what it is to live Jack, to chase your prey day and night, to feel the hot flesh in your teeth! To mate until your spawn rules the earth, to defend your hunting grounds!_ Were the beast's last words. I was openly weeping now, the vampires were no longer at my neck. I didn't realize how much I embraced that creature until it was dead, how dear it was to me. At times, it's lack of developed emotions were even comical, like a young child. Yet it was so powerful. I wept for the bounding hunts it had given me, they were one of the few reasons I hadn't killed myself after Beth. What is life without that killer instinct? I thought to myself. How could I live without it's bloodthirst and razor sharp senses?

And what in god's name would Beth think of me now? I couldn't even think of her, the shame was too great. Shame was all I felt, I was scum now. The lion had become the gazelle he once loved to hunt. I cried profusely through the pain and blood.

"Suck it up pretty boy, there's more to life than being alive." Without the memory of Beth or the strength of the beast, I truly was dead. I grew angry, the shadow magic within me flared up again. My tears stopped as the anger grew. I had nothing to live for, but I sure as hell had something to die for. For the memory of my hunts, to prove to Beth that I was not a monster. Before I had been okay with death, if I died fighting the demons to save the world, that was alright. But this was something else, I wanted to die. I wanted to cease to exist, and kill these vampires in the process.

First I broke the magic bonds holding me in the chair with shadow magic, than whipped around and decked the closest vampire. I didn't realize how lightheaded I was, the pain flashing through my neck was enough to clear it though. I let the shadow magic consume me, take hold of me, than I unleashed it. I was losing my vision in the darkness, I had to kill fast. The vampires shuffled about I let my burned out heart live in my magic. I tore into the first vampire with destructive energy, ripping it apart from the inside. In a moment, it's ribcage burst open with shredded organs. I incarnated a lance of shadow magic and burst it at the female vampire, she caught it with magic of her own. Then I shattered it into hateful strength, her gesturing hands were ripped away. I finished her by ripping her inner vampire spirit out of her body and destroying it. The shadow magic felt good, it made me happy to slaughter. When a vampire kicked my knee in, I hardly felt it, I was too busy channeling his doom. It took me three seconds to put energy inot a spell, but when I launched it, the assailing vampire's body convulsed and died. I laughed as he croaked his last breath. I heard no more movement; I began to back away towards the stairs. I already missed seeing in the dark.

After stumbling up the stairs and into the light, I felt sick. A tracking spell was opened on me, I could feel Helen searching for me from her little interdimensional fortress. I could run, but against a magician with such a powerful tracking spell, I couldn't hide. Within a minute of me walking along the sidewalk, Helen teleported to my side.

"Jack! Thank god you're alright!"

"I'm not. Take a deeper look at me Helen, notably my neck." Helen gasped and staggered away from me. Helen's expression showed fear and grief, I knew the feeling. I was a monster now; even the girl who once idealized me was scared of me. Hell, I had gone from her little fantasy to her nightmare in the course of a few days. Helen turned from me. "Don't turn away, look at me. This is what happens when you fuck with the wrong people, leave the justice to the professionals."

"Why Jack?"  
"Because I stood up for humankind one night at a bar, I brought some vigilante justice down on a vampire scheme and started a vendetta. I hate myself for that night."

"Is it bad?" I wanted to hit her, of course it was.

"It's like having every joyous memory being taken from you. I can't hunt anymore, I'm weak, my senses suck and all I have to compromise for it is a stronger taint. To make up for the last great source of joy I had is a greater ability to destroy. It's fucking hell." Helen leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, it actually stung. I was crying again as we walked down the sidewalk, into a destroyed Western Addition block.

Her British accent kicked in again "Is there anything I can do to help?" She sighed a breast moving sigh. I got her drift, I didn't want it.

"No, I'm going to talk to Wyatt, how long until we can get Soloman out?"

"For him to keep the anticipated force in place tonight he will need to be on our plane. We were planning on you fighting him with me, Wyatt and the Champion of Righteousness."

"I will fight him alone, if I die and he lives you guys can finish him off. If he dies and I live I'll probably off myself later. If we both die then we've got a win win situation on our hands."

"You want to kill yourself?"

"What do I have to do with the rest of my life Helen? Kill people and drink their blood? Hide indoors all my life until the sun sets? Be a monster in the eyes of those who I love? Beth already hated me, now I can't stand to think of ever being with her again. Let me die in violence Helen, so it can be over."

Helen was crying now to, I sat down on a ruined stoop, she accompanied me. I called out to Wyatt with my mind.

_Jack, I'm glad you're alive._

Not quite Wyatt, come to me.

_On my way._

"I will miss you Helen, can I give you some advice?"

"Of course Jack."

"Love is damn important in life, in relationships. Find someone who loves you, someone to love. While you're at it, find something that makes you happy. The world will tear you apart if you can't get those."

"It feels like your trying to subtly tell me to stop flinging myself on people and to do something other than magic in life."

"That's a start." We both laughed. My laughter was hollow and echoing, more a knee jerk reaction than an expression of joy. "I'd like time alone with Wyatt."

"Than goodbye Jack, the M.E.R.L.I.N. will miss you. Your brutishness is appreciated."

"Goodbye Helen, live well." I hugged her goodbye, we were both still crying. Some of my blood flaked off on her scarf, we kissed for a moment. I didn't kiss her with the passion I kissed Beth with, more the care of a father. Wyatt showed up down the street from me on his spirit horse as Helen walked off.

Jimmy's eyes were wide with shock, tears welled from them. He was in the form of an old, venerable druid. In truth that's what he was, this was just a bit more flattering in appearance. His robes were grey-green, a few trinkets hung from a necklace. He had a long grey beard with streaks of darker grey in it, his hair of grey hung past his shoulders. He leaned on a simple wooden staff with a spiral curved top.

"I feared the day they would catch you Jack, did they take the beast from you?"

"Yeah, they did." I noted that you could hide information from a young supermagician, but they would find it. A venerable druid of two thousand years however knew everything about you by a moment's glance. "There is no more joy in my life, even the memory of Beth brings me such shame. I've gone from bad to worse, I want to die."

"I can't say that I understand, but you have my sympathies. Soloman will be here tonight, I presume he's your method of suicide."

"Yeah, I'm going to do something with my death." Wyatt chuckled.

"What?"

"Just that you have had the worst two years I've ever heard of." It was true. I started my career as a vigilante two years ago; it was all downhill from there. The only good thing to come of it was a few days with Beth. It was indeed tragically comic. I let out a chuckle as well. We talked about our lives for the rest of the day, which was a few hours. I cried the whole time, I couldn't bear it. I was a monster now, a vampire for Christ's sake. Night began to fall, I had plenty of energy to go out with, if I needed to I would destroy myself in casting, it was possible. Wyatt told me of what Rome was like in its height, of the bravery of heroes and the cowardice of cravens. Word got out that I was dying really quick; they said everyone was preparing a send off for when I fought Solomon tonight.

"It is a strange feeling, I want to kill Solomon and destroy all that he stands for, but I've never seen him before. All he is to me is words and a description in a book, everyone else I've fought I've had a face to the actions. And for Solomon, all there are is words and the actions of his commanded demons."

"I suppose so, whatever happens, don't let him talk you down."

"Not a chance Wyatt, I don't need the beast to shoot first and ask questions later."

"I mean it Jack, he's a demon, they can be persuasive. If you want, I can give you Manioc brew if you need it. You probably know it as berserker tea, it is quite potent."

"I'm good" The sun was beginning to set, a message rolled into my mind. _Weaknesses in planar barrier in the Presidio-Golden Gate area_. There was a pause, that message was the call to action. _Demon Solomon incoming onto the Golden Gate, all troops mobilize. _All of a sudden jeeps and tanks and humvees rolled through the streets, soldiers loaded within them. Wardens rode on their divine steeds to the Presidio, an old Spanish fort with a park surrounding it in northwestern San Francisco. Me and Wyatt watched as every force humankind had to muster and bring to San Francisco went to the roads and highways by the Presidio. Soldiers saluted me as they drove by, Wardens made crossing signs over my body. The fading sunlight was already bothering me; I was losing my mortality quickly. Sentinels saluted me in M.E.R.L.I.N. fashion by offering me their staff, in tradition I refused it. Tanks from Mexico and Canada accompanied American forces. There were troops from every nation that could offer them to protect humankind, if this was our last hour it was sure to be our finest. A new message came to me and Wyatt as the parade of soldiers passed us. _Jack Crest, your send off is at the Exploratorium's large dome. Good luck. _That was me and Wyatt's que to get going, we flew over to the massive bronze dome of San Francisco's Exploratorium.

The dome was supported by Greco Doric columns and made of brown rock, it was an artful imitation of the real thing. San Francisco could have been one of the ancient cities like Athens or Jerusalem if it hadn't been built so late. We landed in between the columns to what looked like a funeral without a coffin. All the major players in my life of late were there: General O'Doram, standing at attention, Helen, Jimmy, Michael's family with Peter in pint sized armor, All the heads of the M.E.R.L.I.N. societies, and for some reason the president. I had never seen him in person before, but if he wanted to be at my practice funeral that was cool with me.

The president of America, Barack Obama, spoke to me first. "Jack Crest, it is with great honor that we attend you before your sacrifice to humankind. You will not be forgotten in the hearts of mankind in America, or the entire world. Your courage and heroism set an example for all of us to follow; we should all be more like you in the face of such danger. I salute your disregard for petty squabbles in groups you are a part of to focus on the larger issue; your devotion to justice and the people of the world is Saint like. Fight well and may you rest in peace." It was a touching spectacle. General O'Doram spoke to me next.

"Jack, it is a tragedy that war has to be in the manner that the greatest will die first, but their will to sacrifice is what makes them so great. It is an honor to present you with a silver star for valor in combat, as well as the purple heart for sacrifice in combat." The general took the two medals out of a pocket on her military jacket and pinned them onto my jerkin, a tear rolling down her face. "I hope your sacrifice will not be in vain, we will do everything in our power to finish this tonight." General O'Doram stepped back to the President's side.

Little Peter and his eldest sister took a step forward, they were both crying. "Jack, I don't know what to do!" The boy was bawling in his armor now, I kneeled down to his height, crying myself. It was a crime to put the boy into the Hand of God so short after the death of his father. Kneeling the boy was tall to me, but he needed it. I gave the burgeoning hero a bear hug, I had no idea what to say. "What do I do?" He begged of me.

"I don't know Peter, I don't know." I felt so powerless, my muscles were weak, my mind was tired and my heart was so stressed. I needed Beth; she would know what to do at a time like this. The boy cried more onto my shoulder, I cried onto his. Life was too unfair; it seemed to be set up to destroy the greatest in life. I hardly knew his father, I only knew him for his courage and his strength. That was another regret on my list, never getting to know the people I loved. Peter reached out his left hand, clasped in it was an iron cross, large as my own palm. He tried to make out some words, but he cried too much. In the end, he just shoved it into my fist and returned to the semi circle. I was bothered by it's power, but not so much as I had been before. Hell, considering I was a vampire and that this should be killing me, I was in no comparative pain.

"Good luck Jack, god be with you tonight." The eldest daughter was trying to be strong for her terrified little brother, I didn't blame her. She herself was crying her eyes out, they retreated back to the semi circle the gathering had formed.

Helen walked forward, the M.E.R.L.I.N. heads of societies behind her. "Jack, I know that you would never accept a position in the M.E.R.L.I.N. even if I offered it." She paused, her accent recovering through tears. "Forgive me for bluntness here but I can't help but not understand you, it's attractive. All my life there have been rules in magic, always the same gestures and energies. Same motions, same effects, but you are so different. I never understood you at all; when I thought I had you figured out as a tough bloke around for women and guns, you changed again. I have no idea what to say to you Jack, you are a hero to me and a stranger. I hope you can find Beth in the afterlife, to enjoy one last moment with her." Gai Pon Sha snuffled his nose, Albert of Cornwall wiped tears from his eyes. They returned to their spot in the semi circle. Jimmy stepped forward; hand bandaged and gun over his shoulder.

"Holmes you snuck out on me." We both forced a chuckle. I looked into his deep brown eyes, he looked into mine, we both broke our machismo and cried. "You gotta go hard out there boy, don't let em take you cheap."

"You watch your ass Jimmy, don't let em take you alive."

"You betch your ass." We hugged and cried. Jimmy had more balls than ten score men put together, but we cried for a long moment in embrace. I already missed the man's strong arms and wise cracks, and I wasn't a foot from him.

"I love you, you motherfucker."

"Love you too bro." he stepped back away from me, we looked into each other's eyes for half a second before separating. "You don't have to do this man."

"I do Jimmy, it's not living like this. I need to die for something, here and now." He turned from me with a grunt of pain and stepped back to the semi circle. Wyatt took Jimmy's place, his own eyes gleaming with tears.

"Jack, never have I met a man with such courage or strength. I walked with Washington, fought with Odysseus and conversed with Socrates. I was there when Jesus was crucified; I've seen the entire world rise and fall multiple times. But I had never seen anything before I met you, never seen love, rage or courage." Wyatt cried a little as well. "If we were all half the man you were, we would have paradise. I know you always looked to me for advice; I did the best I could to provide it. You should know that I learned more from you than you ever did from me; you gave me more strength than I could have ever provided me and that you have blessed me with hope in what I fear will be a hard time. I have one moment of a gift to give you before you go to your final sacrifice; it is not what is best for you but surely what you would want. Forgive my weakness in magic Jack, it may make my gift sadistically short lived." Wyatt? Bad a magic? Impossible, Wyatt was many times stronger than the "strongest wizard alive" Helen. Wyatt began to mutter and cast a spell; soon enough I was no longer under the dome of the Exploratorium, but rather back in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

I was standing on a mountain top, a shard of rock pressed high into the air. Trees with grasses at their roots covered the downward slope, on the other side of me was a cliff dropping off into a breathtaking river gorge. It was ideal hunting territory, but that wasn't what caught my attention. Beth was at my side, her beautiful blue eyes a sea into her soul echoed by her brilliant fire red hair. She wore her denim jacket and light robes, her feet were bare. On her neck was a necklace I had bought for her, it had been nicked when the bullets of the homunculi killed her. The sight of her filled me with such elation I had never felt before. Wordlessly she leaned in and kissed me on the lips, my spirit soared to a height I had never thought possible. Everything was completely fine with Beth on my lips, life was worth living a million times over. For a long moment I looked into her eyes as we kissed, I couldn't believe this was happening. Beth was alive! I was completely speechless; my heart was hammering with euphoria.

"Beth, my sweet Beth…. Do you hate me?" I said as the kiss parted, I felt the warmth of her hands and breath, it was by far the greatest sensation I'd ever felt. My heart trembled with elation and nervousness that she would be disgusted in what I had become.

"Of course not Jack. I love you." I was in awe, her beauty was staggering, the emotions were disabling, and there are no words to describe my thrill at forgiveness. The wind blew for a long moment, Beth's warmth faded away. The mountain top slowly faded away, I was scared. Beth wasn't there anymore, nor the mountain. I was still in the dome of the Exploratorium, Wyatt was breathing heavily. Wyatt made a spell that gave me a mental hallucination of all that, amazing work.

"Thank you Wyatt, it means more than you could ever know."

"Your welcome Jack."

"Thank you all for your tribute, it means a lot to be remembered, has Solomon surfaced yet?"

Samuel Corivara shook his head "He is opening a private rift over the Golden Gate bridge, be ready for him there." The Golden Gate Bridge, that seemed a fitting place to end things. It would be dramatic, that's for sure.

"Goodbye everyone, live well." I took off into the air after conjuring my staff. I had to get out of my weeping state and use the energy from my little illusion with Beth to kill Solomon. I still hungered for blood, but this was not the hunting spirit's way. This was a more businesslike, side note bloodlust. When the Beast was bloodthirsty, it was time for a hunt or a fight, this was time to go downstairs and draw up a victim. I still had my magic, hopefully that would be enough to kill Solomon, if I needed to I could use Black magic.

I passed over the battleground of the Presidio and it's nearby woods. It was a tragedy for such historic buildings and beautiful land to be destroyed, but we had to if we were to preserve our own lives. I flew over the Golden Gate bridge, in the night sky it was marvelous. The calm red tone of the painted metal structure shone even in the starlight, it's amazing grace was untouched by the destroyed cars littering it. There were the two towers that held up the suspension cables of the bridge, one some seventy yards from the north and the other the equal distance from the south. On the bridge I saw a lone figure, tall and in robes. He stood in the middle of the road crossing the bridge, among the rubble of the lane divider. I felt weak just looking at him; I already knew who he was. Thank god he had a taste for the dramatic. When I landed I bid the sky a sweet goodbye, and then focused on the situation.

I walked underneath the southern tower, Solomon spoke. "Hello Jack Crest, how are you this fine evening?"

"Fucking terrible, how are you?"

"I'm sorry to hear that, I'm not doing so well myself. You see, my entire life's work is being stopped by the people I intend to destroy, not to mention the fact that the quite a large amount of my soldiers have been killed by a one Jack Crest. My only consolation is that he has become that which he hates the most."

"That makes two of us; we should get a tattoo or something. You get fucking terrible; I'll get October two thousand twelve."

"I guess it wouldn't be a conversation without your halfhearted witticisms." Solomon gave a flash of a smile, shiny white fangs in his mouth. It is a fine evening for combat, is it not? A nice red sky, fog of war rolling in, a bloodstained moon to finish it. And here we are, the hero and the villain, each the greatest our kind can spare. A better fight could not be conceived, our forces going against each other may be the epitome of violence. Don't you agree?"

"You shouldn't speak of combat so lightly; those who play with fire get burned."

"And the fool would be better off listening to advice rather than giving it. I've been in countless battles on countless planes, slain heroes and gods in battles so great that they dimmed out the stars. Your advice is hardly useful or original. But I mean you no personal offense, in fact, I greatly admire you. Never have I seen a man who makes every action so personal, it astounds me. Every fight you go into is for your own cause, and that gives you heart like nothing else. I do hope that you bring that same vigor to this battle, it would be a shame for a man like you to go out without his trademark fury."

I ignored that last part about making things personal to verbally jab at him. "You fought those gods on your own turf, now you're on mine. You are weaker here, and your spells are foreign. You'll have to tinker with your magic to make sure it works with this plane, and that gives me a huge edge."

"I hate this redundancy Jack, but your advice is again unhelpful and unoriginal. Now, should we get to it? I've been anticipating this moment for such time Jack, forgive me if I'm rushing you into this decision. But still, are you ready to fight?"

"Jesus, I'm going to kill you, not marry you." He gave me a blank stare, I tried to rally up a powerful speech or at least an original war cry, but none came to mind. "I'm here for all humankind Solomon, not you. I came here because my people are threatened by yours and I'm the only one who can stop you. I don't care how horny you are to fight me, I'm going to kill you with all of my power, and there is nothing you can do to stop me."

"Should we begin? Are you ready?" Solomon seemed to ignore my comment, and that was the first blow of the fight.

"I was born ready." I ran forward in a zigzag pattern as he just stood there, channeling a spell. It had begun that easily, I couldn't believe I was actually doing this. I roared in agony as a spell hit me. It sent me careening back, smashing into the railing over the bay. It was easy to die falling from that height; I needed to stay away from the edge. But before I could get up, invisible force carried my pain soaked body over the edge of the bridge and dropped me. I was falling, to my death. The fight had only taken moments but he had defeated me. I couldn't believe it, the water rose up to hit me at a rapid pace. I couldn't go down that quietly, not on a witticism and a battle roar. I activated my flight spell and zoomed under the bridge, I got up behind where Solomon had been facing. I came up over the bridge and fired my wand bracer at him before he could react. Freezing cold salt water splashed over him before he could get his shield in place. That would make it hard for him to cast spells and channel energy. I fired the air wand, that should have sent him spinning along the road, but it was too late and his shield was up.

"I was hoping for more than that!" He screamed as he ran away from my blasts.

"That's what she said!" I yelled back, drawing my bow and firing arrows down at him. I smirked at the concept of my last witticism, He returned with bolts of shadowy death, a powerful spell of black magic. I dodged them with ease in the air; he had to contend with me going any direction I wanted at any speed I wanted. But when he wound up some type of chasing hell spirit, I was fucked. He made a ghost like figure out of black magic, I was sure it would have deadly potential when it got to me. He let it free among a new flurry of magic, I had to work hard to dodge them, eventually I ducked behind a tower and avoided them. The spirit came closer, it moved quickly and with killing efficiency. It floated quickly through the air, spectral claws reaching for me; I flew from it and into a barrage of fire and black magic. A fireball collided into my stomach and sent me reeling from the sky; I was hardly alive after a hit like that. I didn't have the killing, savage endurance the beast once gave me, I needed to be on my toes. More bolts flew through the night after me, pursued by the specter. I got back into the sky and flew under the bridge; he hadn't been able to get me there. I caught my breath and tried to focus my jumbled thoughts there when pain touched my heart. I was falling again, burning pain entering my mind, taking control of me. The specter had gotten me, it was controlling my mind. Quickly it shut down my ability to cast spells, then made me stop breathing as I fell towards the bay water at an accelerating speed. I pushed my will against it, and took control of my body again; it was a weak mind control. I hammered my will into flight and swooped out over the bay and back up to the bridge.

"Enough of the cheap shots Solomon! You can do better than that!" I roared as I blasted at Solomon with my Desert Eagle after popping above the bridge once more. Solomon made evasive motions and dodged my shots, but by then I had him on the run. I soared low to the bridge with staff in hand yet again. "Pyromenthil!" I roared as I spun around Solomon, he pulled up a shield to block my fiery assault. "I will kill you, and may it be the last thing I do!" I roared at him as I charged up a powerful fire spell. I wished I had developed more spells, he could block this too well. He charged a spell of his own from behind the shield, little did he know of the plan I had in motion. I grasped the iron cross Peter had given me before I left; I felt the holy energy charge within me. He let down his magic shield to blast at me with his spell, I shot back with mine. The divine and the forsaken clashed in magic power and the shockwave sent us both to the road. I watched as heaven and hell collided in front of me, my holy fire and his unholy black magic. "Cleansing fire!" I roared, the strength of angels poured in my veins. Fire leapt from my palms to destroy Solomon, he shielded again. I recovered my footing and glared at him through his shield. He was making a new plot inside that impenetrable dome, all I could do was hit him when he came out of it."Fight like you mean it bitch! Neither of us will live through this, we are equals! I die for my kind, you die for yours!" I roared at him through his shield, he was visibly scared. In a single moment, he collected himself and spoke through his shield.

"Unlike you, I have something to lose. I can run and hide I can retreat. This is my attack, in case you have forgotten. I don't intend to die in some heroic hero vs. villain stand off, I intend to solve a problem and regroup my forces. I'm sure you can understand."

"Watch me from the grave Beth, it is your memory I fight for!" I invoked my own passion to give me strength. The pain was bearing down on me; soon I would be useless again. "Pyromenthil!" I blast my fire against his shield. I began to fly again, this was it. This was the heroic end of my life, I could not ask for a better way to die.

"She never loved you Jack, you frightened her!" Solomon screamed as he assaulted my mind. He pushed into my emotions, my plans, my magic. He tried to destroy all of it, I dropped to the road and focused. I had to protect myself from this attack. "Give it up!" he yelled. I forgot who I was for a moment, how to do anything, even how to breath. For a moment there, I was just meat. "She was never even there Jack, everything you have is a lie!" he yelled more before preparing a spell. Who was she? Who am I? What am I doing here? Who is this man? What is he doing? The strange man smiled, his hands were blurry.

"Beth was just a woman you frightened to loving you!" He screamed his final insult. He must not have realized that his spell had made it through, or he would have not risked something that could make me remember what had been lost. Everything came rushing back to me, I was Jack Crest, a hero. Beth, the beast, magic, my life, Helen, Solomon, it was all real again. I pushed him out of my mind and dodged a bolt of shadow magic.

"You can't fool me bastard!" I ran forward with all possible speed, Solomon didn't know how to react. "I am Jack Crest, I love Beth Mclane, I am the Beast, I am the Vampire slayer, and you are nothing!" I roared in my loudest yell as I tackled Solomon. I drove him in the tackle towards the edge of the bridge, then threw him off. I wasn't sure if he knew how to fly or not, he hadn't used it at all yet. I jumped off after him to catch up to him in the air; he tried to take over my mind again. He needed to die; this was how I could finish his destructive existence.

"You will kill us both fool!" I ignored him and caught him in the air. All of a sudden he began to fly, carrying me up with him. He must have invented the spell on the spot, that or he was very foolish. I activated my own flight spell, I used it to bring us downward. We channeled our spells against each other, each of us fighting for our direction, for our goal. We began to fall, my spell canceled out his.

"See you in Hell." I growled into his ear as I tightened my grip. Gravity took us down towards the black water beneath us, through the night air. Through fire and hatred, rage and love. I was dimly aware of the implications of my fall, I was too far into a trancelike state to care. As hero and villain we fell, I embraced Solomon in a deadly bear hug. And as we spiraled towards the water, I thought of Beth, and told her I would be there for her with my heart. In an instant we crashed into the deep black water, and everything was over.


End file.
